m 




«8? 




Class_( Jft43 ,4- 

Book , ? 4» 

Copyright N° 



CORfRSGHT DEPOSm 



A CIVIC READER 



For Seventh, Eighth, and 
Ninth Grades 



BY 

FRANCIS B. PEARSON 

Author of 

Reveries of a Schoolmaster, The Reconstructed School 

The High School Problem, The Vitalized School 

Uncle Danny's Neighbors, etc. 

AND 

JOHN L. CLIFTON 

Professor of Principles of Education, College of Education, 

Ohio State University, and Editor of The Ohio 

Educatioral Monthly 



PUBLISHED BY 

THE OHIO EDUCATIONAL MONTHLY 

COLUMBUS, OHIO 



A* 



4*%* 



Copyright 1920 

By 

F. B. Pearson and J. L. Clifton 

Columbus, Ohio 



Columbus, Ohio 

THE F. J. HEER PRIMT1NG CO. 

1920 



AM 31 IS^© C ,, A 57 6 588 



^Ui 



PREFACE 

IT has long been a settled conviction in the 
minds of many teachers that the teaching of 
citizenship should be synthetic rather than so 
largely analytic. Pupils of the seventh, eighth, and 
ninth grades are prone to do constructive thinking; 
they yearn to do things, to make things. Now if 
we can contrive to have the principles of good citi- 
zenship enmeshed in the current of their thinking, 
these principles will become a part of themselves 
quite the same as breathing or walking. Thus it 
will come to pass that they will put these principles 
into practice in their daily conduct. They will thus 
become good citizens automatically and well-nigh 
unconsciously and the community will feel the vital- 
izing and stimulating influence of their presence. 
These things have been kept in mind in the prepa- 
ration of this book. From the materials herein 
provided it is hoped that pupils themselves will 
construct and develop right standards of living and 
discover measuring-rods with which they will test 
their own conduct. They will thus fit themselves 
out with the habiliments of the citizen and they 
will take pride in the fact that they themselves 
have fabricated them. They are just emerging 
into the realm of independence and this syn- 
thetic process will march with this independent 
feeling. They will make their own blue-print of 

(3) 



4 Preface 

life and will glory in the work of their own 
hands. Such is the purpose of this book and 
the authors dare express the hope that all teachers 
who use it may keep this goal distinctly in view. 

F. B. Pearson, 
J. L. Clifton. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I — The Study of Civics 7 

II — Law and Order 16 

III — Respect for Law 25 

IV — Americanization 34 

V — The Adopted American 43 

VI — The Artist Citizen 53 

VII — Leisure Time 62 

VIII — Wishing 70 

IX — Doing One's Best 78 

X — Wants and Needs 86 

XI — Our Debts 95 

XII — Boy and Girl Scouts 104 

XIII — Waste and Saving 113 

XIV — Loyalty 123 

XV— Playing the Game 131 

XVI — The Master American 139 

XVII — Our Government 148 

XVIII — Country Life 157 

XIX — The Business of Living 166 

XX — Chances and Choices 175 

XXI — Community Life 185 

(5) 



I. THE STUDY OF CIVICS 



WE need only to look out of the window 
from where we are sitting to find a be- 
ginning for our study of civics. We 
shall see many things that will give us our start. We 
may see a bridge, a turn-pike, a street, a pavement, a 
letter-box, a telephone pole, a garbage wagon, a 
street sweeper, or a sprinkling wagon. Any of 
these will set us to thinking. Whichever one it may 
happen to be we shall wonder how and why it came 
to be and what purpose it is intended to serve. If 
it is a bridge we know, at once, that somebody 
built it, that somebody else gave an order that it 
should be built, and that the men who built it were 
paid for the work. We know, too, that whoever 
gave orders for its building must have thought it 
would serve a good purpose. He must have known, 
also, where the money could be had to pay for it. 
So, when we see this bridge, if we are at all curious 
about such matters, we begin at once to ask ques- 
tions about it. We are curious to know who has 
authority to order bridges built, and from where 
the money comes. None of us have ever given an 
order for a bridge nor have we ever helped pay for 
one, so far as we know. But some one must have 
given an order, and others must have paid for it. 
We shall probably find that the county commission- 

(7) 



8 A Civic Reader 

ers gave the order, and then we begin to wonder 
who these commissioners are and how they get the 
authority to build bridges and where they get the 
money to pay for them. 

Convenience, Safety and Comfort 

Such questions as these lead us straight into 
the study of civics for this subject has to do with all 
the work that is done for the convenience, the safety, 
and the comfort of the people. We may all agree 
that a bridge is a good thing, but we ought to know 
why it is a good thing, and whether it is worth to 
the people, the money that is paid for it. We shall 
see many bridges in the course of a lifetime and, if 
we can find out about one of them, we shall know 
much about all of them. We shall know how they 
came to be, how they were paid for, and what pur- 
pose they serve. Whenever we see a bridge there 
will flash into our minds many facts about bridges 
that we learned in our study of this one bridge. We 
shall be able to talk intelligently on the subject of 
bridges and explain them to others. Thus, it will be 
seen that in our study of the bridge we see, when we 
look out of the window, we are really finding out 
about the bridges in California, in Maine, in Louis- 
iana, in Iowa, and in all the other states. This will 
cause us to wonder whether the bridges in Maine 
are paid for in the same way as the bridges in Cal- 
ifornia and whether all the states have county 
commissioners who have authority to order the 
building of bridges. We shall soon discover that 
bridges serve a good purpose in providing for the 



The Study of Civics 9 

convenience, safety, and comfort of many people 
and it will be easy to see that what is true of this 
bridge is true of every bridge in all the states. 

Railway Bridges 

Of course, we all know that the railroads build 
their own bridges, but that fact does not change the 
situation greatly, for the railroads must gain per- 
mission to build them. So, whether our officials 
order a bridge built, or % give permission to the rail- 
road to build it, matters but little in our study of 
bridges. However, it is well for us to keep in mind 
the fact that when the county commissioners build 
a bridge the tax-payers pay for it, but when the 
railroad company builds it, that company pays 
for it. The public officials give the railroad 
company permission to build it because it will 
serve a good purpose in the way of conveni- 
ence, safety and comfort. We may well think 
of all the other objects we see through the window 
and inquire just how each one of them provides for 
the convenience, safety, and comfort of the people. 
In this way we can soon find out whether our 
officials have done wisely in supplying us with all 
these things. 

Public Health 

When we make this inquiry concerning a 
garbage-wagon we come, at once, upon the sub- 
ject of public health, and we are led to wonder 
whether they have garbage-wagons in San Fran- 
cisco, St, Louis, Chattanooga, Albany, and St. Paul 



10 A Civic Reader 

and, if so, just how these wagons serve the interests 
of public health. Every thoughtful girl or boy will 
very soon discover that decaying garbage near the 
house gives off disease germs that will affect the 
people and that it is well, therefore, to take this 
garbage away each day and make it over into 
fertilizer. 

Clean Streets 

The street-sweeper comes into our thoughts 
along with the garbage-wagon for it, too, is an 
agency that provides for the convenience, safety, 
and comfort of the people. Filth breeds disease 
and we keep the streets clean to keep disease away. 
Good health is one of the greatest of blessings and 
it is wise and right for our officials to do all in their 
power to keep our streets and alleys clean, and free 
from disease germs. If we should permit the 
streets to become filthy, garbage to accumulate 
around our premises, and our sewers to become 
clogged, in a very short time we would be afflicted 
with an epidemic that would be fatal to many 
people. So it is that we sweep the streets, remove 
the garbage, and keep the sewers open for the con- 
venience, safety, and comfort of all the people and 
the money we pay for these services is wisely 
spent. We have only to think how many people in 
all the cities depend upon these things for their 
health to realize how much the people who are busy 
in public health matters are doing for all of us. We 
ought to be grateful to all the men who are thus 
working for us in sweeping the streets, carting 
away the garbage, and keeping the sewers open 



The Study of Civics 11 

for they are looking after the health of each one 
of us. When we have good health we can do good 
work and be happy while we are doing it. 

Drainage 

Sometimes in riding through the country we 
see a big open ditch that extends, it may be, for 
miles and we wonder what it is and for what it is 
used. Somebody must have ordered it dug, and he 
must have had a reason for doing so. Now, the study 
of civics must include such a matter as this open 
ditch. If we should take a stroll on the edge of this 
ditch we would see water running into it from tile 
drains along the whole distance and we would then 
know that the farmers use this ditch to carry off 
the water which they drain from their lands by 
means of tile. These farmers have learned that by 
putting down tile drains over their fields they get 
larger crops, but they must have some means of car- 
rying off the surplus water to some stream. So the 
officials construct the ditch and levy taxes to pay 
for it. It is a public service and, since many people 
share in its benefits, it is only right that it should 
be paid for by public taxes. When we know how 
many factories in all the states of our country are 
busy making tile, how many tile they make in a year, 
how much they get for their product, and how 
many men they employ we shall see what a big sub- 
ject drainage is and the big open ditch would seem 
a pretty important affair. For there must be thou- 
sands of such open ditches in the United States and 
all of them made for the same purpose. 



12 A Civic Reader 

School-Desks 

Or, again, if we are sitting in a school-room 
the desk in front of us will set us thinking as to 
how it came to be. We see that it is made of wood 
and iron and we know that the wood was once a 
part of a tree that stood in some forest, perhaps 
in Michigan, and that the iron had once the form 
of ore that lay in some mine, perhaps in Wisconsin. 
This ore was taken from the mine, shipped to a 
smelting furnace and finally reached the factory 
where it was made into castings as we see them. 
The wood that was a part of the tree, was taken to 
a saw-mill as a log, and was then sent to the factory 
in the form of lumber. Then the wood and the iron 
were put together and the desk had taken form. 
When it had been polished and varnished it was 
shipped to this school. Thus far the story of the 
desk is easily told for it is a simple matter to learn 
how furniture is made. Many boys and girls have 
visited a furniture factory and know the process. 
To those who have not done so the teacher will 
gladly explain about the mining, shipping, and 
smelting of ore, and, also, about felling trees, 
logging-camps, rafting logs, and saw-mills. Or 
some pupil may like to write the story of the iron, 
telling all the changes after it left the mine, and 
another may be glad to write the story of the wood 
from the time it stood in the forest in the form of 
a tree. 

School Taxes 

But there is still another story connected with 
this desk that each pupil will be eager to learn and 



The Study of Civics 13 

that story has to do with all the people who helped 
to bring the iron and the wood to us in this form. 
Some one must have paid them for their work and 
we are wondering who paid them and from where 
the money came. In the first place we all know 
about school boards, and we may know that these 
boards have control of all the school-buildings. The 
members of a school board are elected by the people 
at the regular voting places and at the regular time 
for holding elections. In due time these members 
come together and organize by electing one of the 
members president. There is a clerk who keeps 
a careful record of all the proceedings. This board 
looks after all matters that have to do with public 
schools and acts for all the people who elected them. 
It has power to erect buildings, supply them with 
furniture and other equipment. All these things 
are paid for out of taxes. All the people who own 
property go to the court house and pay taxes to 
the county treasurer after the county auditor has 
given him the amount of tax that each property 
owner owes. Later on the county treasurer trans- 
fers to the school board a part of this tax money 
and the board then has funds with which to pay 
for building, equipment, and salaries. 

The Duties of School Boards 

So, we see what a school board is, how its mem- 
bers are elected, what its duties are, how it gets 
its money, and what use it makes of this money. 
They have schools in Denver, Seattle, Duluth, 
Buffalo, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and all other cities, 



14 A Civic Reader 

villages, and townships, and we know there must 
be a school board wherever there are schools. So 
we can readily see that there is a very large number 
of such boards in our country and that means that 
the school system of the United States is a big affair. 
Since all these boards are elected by the people 
or they are appointed by some public official all 
the schools which they control are called public 
schools and by this we mean that they belong to the 
people. If we could find out how many school- 
rooms there are in our county, how many desks in 
each room we could easily tell how many desks are 
used in the county. Then by thinking of the 
number of counties in our state and the number 
of states in the United States, we have some 
idea of the number of desks used in all the 
public schools of our country. Each one of 
these desks is one item in our study of civics and 
we can see quite clearly how large the study of 
civics is since it includes every item that the public 
provides, for the convenience, the safety, and com- 
fort of the people. We have already been thinking 
of roads, bridges, ditches, and streets, and every 
pupil will find it interesting to add to this list the 
many other things that are provided, for the con- 
venience, the safety, and comfort of the people. 
This list when it is made complete will show us 
how large the study of civics is. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

How are taxes collected? Who pays for this collection? 
Is all property taxed? Are the rates of taxation the same on 



The Study of Civics 15 

all taxable property? Why are there so many complaints against 
taxes? Are all bridges free to the public? Do you know of 
any bridge which is owned by private parties and which is not 
free to the public? Why do cities spend so much more money 
for sanitary equipment than do the villages and rural communi- 
ties? Are health officers necessary? Can you name the health 
officer of your district? Suggest some health regulations of 
your district which are enforced. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Toll gates are being discontinued in all parts of the Coun- 
try, "^/hy? Show how the officials of village and rural com- 
munities protect the health of their people. Boards of Educa- 
tion are sometimes called trustees or may have other titles. 
Make a clear outline of the school authorities of your district. 
Find out when your school house was built and if possible its 
cost. 



II. LAW AND ORDER 



A N apple-tree in full bloom is a thing of great 
Z-V beauty. No artist has ever made a picture 
of it whose beauty is equal to the tree itself. 
But its .beauty is not the only fact that wins our 
interest. We might ask a score of questions about 
the color and shape of the blossoms and ab^< ^^ 
bark, leaves, and roots of the tree but after all these 
questions there would still be many things that 
would interest and puzzle the thoughtful person. 
We know that the leaves do not appear until the 
warm days have come and we feel certain that sun- 
shine has something to do with the budding and 
blossoming. We are told that the sap rises from 
the roots up into the body and branches of the 
tree and the people who seem to know science use 
some large words in trying to explain this process. 
They tell us that the rootlets take up moisture from 
the earth and that this moisture goes up into the 
tree by what is known as capillary attraction just 
as water rises in a glass tube above the level of the 
water in the vessel in which the tube is placed. 
Whatever the explanation is we know that when 
the weather becomes warm a change comes over the 
tree, that buds appear, then leaves, then blossoms, 
and finally fruit. People tell us that all these things 
happen according to the law of growth. Just what 

(16) 



Law and Order 17 

this law is they do not say and that is well, for we 
thus have a chance to study it out for ourselves. It 
may require a life-time but the time would be well 
spent. When we get to thinking of this law of 
growth, every tree, shrub, and flower will call it to 
mind. 

The Laws of Nature 

We may not know what this law is but can be 
certain that it is a law for it works the same year 
after year and in all places. We know that there 
will be green grass when the spring-time comes 
even though the earth may be covered with snow. 
We know that the trees will put forth buds and 
leaves. We know that the flowers will bloom again 
and that the birds will sing the same notes that they 
sang last year. We may call it the law of growth 
or the law of life, but one can not be mistaken as 
to its reality. In general it is called the law of 
nature, since it has to do with all the things of 
nature. We know that water flows down hill. We 
have seen that fact shown many times. We may 
dismiss this fact by saying it is the law of nature, 
but even such a common occurrence as the flowing 
of a stream should cause us to stop and wonder 
what the real law is and how it came to be. A blade 
of grass seems a wonderful thing when we reflect 
that it grows and is green because of some law that 
controls it. We have seen birds fly a thousand times 
and we take their flying as a matter of course, but 
after we have made a study of the wing of a bird 

2 



18 A Civic Reader 

and understand how the structure of its wings en- 
ables it to float in the air or propel itself through 
space we shall never again look upon the flying of 
a bird as an ordinary affair, but shall know that 
we are looking upon another manifestation of nat- 
ural law. 

Illustrations of Nature's Laws 

The sun rose in the east yesterday and set in 
the west, and it will do the same tomorrow; for 
such is the law. We shall see the North star to- 
night just where we saw it last night, but other 
stars will have changed their positions ; for such is 
the law. Next spring the robin will build just such 
a nest as she had last spring; for such is the law. 
We have often heard the expression "making a 
bee-line" and we have come to know that the bee 
travels on a direct line from the flower to its home 
in the hive even over a long distance. The bee 
obeys a law that we call instinct but we do not 
really know what instinct is. A carrier-pigeon may 
be taken a hundred miles from its cote but upon 
being released it will return to its home by the 
shortest route. A human being would zig-zag 
about, or make inquiries, or use a compass in travel- 
ing the same distance, but the pigeon needs no com- 
pass since it obeys this law of instinct. Blood- 
hounds are often used to track down criminals, and 
they follow a trail by their sense of smell. Just how 
they do this we do not know and the best we can 
do is to say that it is a law of nature. We know 
the beautiful forms of snow-crystals, but we can not 



Law and Order 19 

explain how these forms came to be. We place them 
under a microscope and admire their beauty. But 
there we stop, for we do not understand the law 
that these snow-crystals obey. 

Obedience to Law 

We see, then, that all nature obeys law even 
though we do not fully understand what the law is. 
We learn many interesting facts about nature and 
try to discover the law, but there is always some- 
thing just beyond us that we can not explain. We 
know that a dew-drop is round and that the earth 
is round and we may think that the same law 
governs the shape of both but may not be able to 
prove it. We know many facts about rain, snow, 
frost, dew, and hail and speak glibly about climate, 
but when we come to study all these things care- 
fully we feel that the law that governs them is too 
deep for us. We know that the sky is blue but can 
not tell why. We know there is a law somewhere 
back of the thunder, the lightning, and the storm, 
but we can not explain this law to others. We say 
that the bee and the elephant both have instinct 
that controls their actions but beyond this we can 
not go. We know that a cat can arch its spine but 
that a fish can not and we wonder, at once, if 
this peculiarity of the fish has anything to do with 
its ability to swim. We know how a rainbow is 
formed but we can not explain why its colors are 
arranged in just that order. We may wonder why 
green is the middle one of the seven colors or why 



20 A Civic Reader 

red and violet are the outer ones. In fact, wherever 
we turn in nature we are face to face with mystery 
that keeps us thinking all the while about the sub- 
ject of law. 

Hie Law of Kindness 
We know that there are very many laws printed 
in the books but we now see that there are also 
laws which are not in the books. In fact, there are 
laws in human nature that are not recorded in law- 
books. We often hear of the law of kindness. A 
boy is not kind to his mother or his sister because 
of some written law, but he is kind because of a 
law in his own nature. Unkindness either to people 
or to animals jars upon him and causes him to 
feel that a law has been violated. He is gentle to 
the aged and infirm and to little children not be- 
cause he fears punishment if he is not so, but, rather, 
because he is obeying a law of his nature. Now we 
can clearly see that if all members of a family — 
father, mother, sisters, and brothers — obey this 
law of kindness there will be order in that home. 
There can be no jars or discord in such a home as 
that, for all the people in that home move in 
obedience to the law of kindness. There are no 
discords or collisions among the stars because they 
all obey the law that governs them. So, we see that 
law and order go hand in hand and, indeed, every 
law looks toward order and harmony. When we 
obey the laws of health we are well and happy, but 
when we violate those laws we become ill and the 
physician is called in to restore order in our bodily 
organs. 



Law and Order 21 

Laws Within Ourselves 

If all pupils in the school obeyed the law of 
their nature there would be small need of rules, for 
deep down in our nature we all prefer order to dis- 
order. The teacher is well aware of this preference 
for order in the pupils and depends upon them to 
obey this law of their nature. If, by chance, a boy 
becomes disorderly his schoolmates look or speak 
their disapproval of his ways and he is thus re- 
minded that the school is a place of law and order. 
In some schools we have pupil government and it 
works well when the pupils all obey the law within 
themselves. Indeed, when a boy or a man obeys the 
law within himself he does not need other laws or 
rules to keep him orderly. In pupil government 
there are rules, to be sure, but these rules are made 
to remind the pupils of the law of order that is 
within them. So long as they keep this law in mind 
they will act in unison and the teacher's full time 
can be given to teaching. This same law goes with 
thern to the playground and demands fair play in 
every game and to every player. This law that 
favors order frowns upon the bully and the cheat 
and gives them to understand that they must change 
their ways or they will be put out of the game. 
No one can hope to remain an acceptable member 
of the school family who does not contribute his full 
share in keeping the school and the playground 
orderly. That is the law of the school because it is 
the law of the pupils themselves. 



22 A Civic Reader 

Law-Making Bodies 

If live-stock were permitted to run at large on 
the highways the crops along the road would be 
eaten and trampled. This would be disorder. So 
the officials of the county or the state pass a law 
which forbids animals to run at large. So we have 
order and the crops are safe from damage. The 
law that governs the driving of automobiles was 
made that we may have order along streets and 
country roads. If we had no law there would be 
disorder and possibly loss of life. So, here again 
we find that law and order go together. That we 
may have order in every township, village, county, 
city, and state as well as in the nation as a whole 
we have law-making bodies who are elected by the 
people for this definite purpose. In lodges, clubs, 
societies, and churches there are rules that all mem- 
bers are to observe. These rules are made that the 
business of the organization may proceed in an 
orderly way. In literary societies and debating 
clubs in schools and colleges there are laws that all 
members must obey. It is clear, then, that laws 
are enacted and rules made to promote and keep 
order in society, whether in the school, in the 
county, in the city, in the state, or in the nation. 

No Escape From Law 

So it is that we can not escape from law if 
we would. We are subject to law every minute 
whether asleep or awake. It has to do with every 
step we take, every breath we breathe, every pulsa- 



Law and Order 23 

tion of the heart, and, in fact, every movement of 
the body. Not only so, but it has to do also with 
the flower, the butterfly, the bird, the tree, the river, 
the ocean, the whole earth, and the star a million 
miles away. And because of law we have order in 
nature, in our own bodies, in the school, and in 
society. The laws which are made by man are made 
that men may be orderly in their dealings with one 
another. We elect school boards that they may 
cause our schools to be conducted in orderly fashion. 
We elect county commissioners that they may con- 
duct the affairs of the county without friction or 
disorder. We elect councils in our villages and 
cities that they may see to it that public business 
is conducted with fairness and full justice to every 
man, woman, and child. We elect members of the 
state legislature that they may make laws for the 
cities that they may see to it that public business 
among the people as they work at their daily tasks. 
And we elect members of Congress that they may 
enact laws for the entire nation. All these laws are 
made that all our people may enjoy peace, order, 
happiness, and prosperity. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

What laws are enforced about the school house in which 
you go to school? Do you have written laws which regulate 
your actions? What are unwritten laws? Try to explain at 
least one of the unwritten laws of your community. Are you 
afraid of a policeman? Why? You see a sign which reads 
"No Trespassing". What does it mean? Why are laws made? 



24 A Civic Reader 

Can you think of a law which is unjust? When is a law un- 
just? Name a law which is not generally obeyed. Why is this 
law not obeyed? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Find out where people are taken when first arrested. State 
as many reasons as possible why a trial by jury is fair. Name 
the places which are built and kept ready for the use of the 
officers for the confinement of prisoners. Who are lawyers? 
W T hat are the duties of judges? Does the United States Gov- 
ernment have prisons? If so, where are they and who are sent 
to such prisons? When are men and women afraid of the law? 



III. RESPECT FOR LAW 



WE have all seen an officer of the law — a 
policeman, a constable, a sheriff, a 
mayor, or a judge. We may not know all 
about the work of each one, but we do know that it 
has something to do with law. When we think of all 
these and the many others who have to do with law, 
in one way or another, we feel, at once, that law 
must be a very important affair. We know that the 
justice of the peace has to do with law, as well as 
the mayor, the police judge, and all the other judges 
including the judges of the Supreme Court of the 
United States. It bewilders us, at first, to consider 
how many courts we have and we wonder what they 
all do. The more we think of all these courts the 
better we come to know how large a part the law 
plays in our affairs. We think of the township, of the 
county, of the state, and of the nation, and we know, 
without much telling, that each one of these di- 
visions has some laws that relate to it, and that 
there must be a court of some sort in each of these 
divisions. We know, perhaps, that the justice of 
the peace is the court in the township, but when 
we come to think of the county we are not so sure 
of our ground. We are apt to become confused in 
trying to get a clear notion of how a county court 
differs from a village or a city court. It will help 

(25) 



26 A Civic Reader 

us if we think of the mayor's court as having to do 
with village or city laws and the county court as 
having to do with the laws which relate to the county 
outside of villages and cities. The county business 
may be so great that it requires several judges, and 
the city may be so large that the mayor can not 
attend to the work of the court and so has a police 
judge to attend to it. 

Officers of The Law 

Besides all these courts, with their attendant 
constables, policemen, bailiffs, clerks, and other 
minor officers who help to carry out the provisions 
of law, we have a recorder who makes a record of 
all transfers of property. When Mr. Brown sells a 
house or a farm to Mr. Jones he must give to the 
buyer a deed to the property and this deed must be 
copied in the recorder's books. Then we have a 
treasurer who collects the taxes, and he must know 
who owns this property that he may collect the tax 
from the right person. Then, again, we must have 
an auditor to figure out just how much tax each 
property owner must pay, and to report the amount 
to the treasurer. We have a city auditor, a county 
auditor, and a state auditor, and, also, a treasurer 
for the city, the county, the state, and the nation. 
These officials are all doing their work as outlined 
by law. Hence, they are all governed by law in 
the performance of their duties. Each one of these 
officials has helpers — some of them a large force. 
The United States Treasury at Washington occupies 
the whole of a very large building where hundreds 



Respect for Law 27 

of people are employed. All these people are busy at 
the task of collecting taxes to pay the expenses of 
the Government. They take in and pay out vast 
sums of money each working day of the year and 
the law insists that their accounts must balance to 
the penny. 

How Laws Benefit Us 

But these are not the only officials who are 
authorized by law. Every public building of what- 
ever kind has to do with the law, as well as every 
public official from the assessor to the President. 
The court house, the asylum, the schoolhouse, and 
the State House, are all creations of the law, and 
all of these are supported by taxation. Then, too, 
all the officials who work in these public buildings 
get their pay from taxes. This is right and 
proper for they do work for us which we could not 
do for ourselves and keep affairs in order for us. It 
will be seen then that the little word law is in 
reality a very big word and lies under and back 
of the activities of many thousands of people in 
our country. So big is this thing we call law that 
we can never lose sight of it no matter where we 
go. We shall find it on the sea, in the depth of the 
forest, on the mountain-top, in the mine, on the 
boulevard, on the country road, and in the alley of 
the city. It gives us pavements, sewers, railways, 
and country-roads. It brings the mail to our homes, 
provides schools for the children, gives us hospitals 
for the sick, homes for the blind, deaf, aged, and 
cripples, and affords libraries to those who desire 
them. It guards our homes and other property, 



28 A Civic Reader 

gives us the freedom of roads and streets, gives 
us the right to have a voice in choosing our officials, 
and, in general, tries to make the conditions of 
life agreeable for all of us. 

Law is Worthy of Our Respect 

Seeing, then, that law is so wide in its scope 
and touches each one of us in so many ways we 
should all have due respect for it. The man who 
does not respect it is not a good citizen and is 
against society rather than for it. It is sad to know 
that there are some of this kind. For such as these 
we must have police-stations, jails, and penitenti- 
aries. If all people had full respect for law we 
should not need these institutions and society would 
be the better for their absence. There are far too 
many people of this sort but their number is small 
compared to those who do respect the law. The man 
who obeys the law does not fear it for he knows it 
is his friend. He does not shun the policeman or 
the sheriff for he knows full well that their work 
does not have to do with those who respect and 
obey the law. If everybody were obedient to law 
there would be small need for the policeman. It is 
good to know that the great mass of our people have 
no fear of the law for they are the ones who hold 
civilization stable and secure. The man who does 
the right because it is right is a better citizen than 
the man who does right because of his fear of the 
law. The man who would rob a house if he had 
not seen a policeman is a thief at heart and is 
dangerous to society. The man who fears the law 



Respect for Law 29 

can not be trusted to do his best for society. He 
will do the right only because he fears the conse- 
quences if he does wrong, and not because doing 
the right brings him joy. 

Story of a Coachman 

There is a story of a man who was in need of 
a coachman and who advertised for applicants for 
the place. When the first one appeared the man 
told him of a narrow place in a certain road that 
ran at the top of a steep precipice. He then asked 
him how close he could drive the carriage wheels to 
the edge of that precipice. The applicant assured 
the man, with a great show of pride, that he could 
drive within a foot of the precipice with perfect 
safety. The second applicant told him he could 
drive the wheels within six inches of the edge. 
Then appeared the third applicant and when the 
man had told him of the precipice and had asked 
the same question that he had put to the others he 
quietly replied: "I do not know, sir, how close to 
the edge of that bank I could drive your carriage, 
but, if you employ me as your coachman and we find 
it necessary to drive over that bit of road, I'll keep 
as far away from the edge as possible". This is the 
attitude of every true citizen. He will keep as far 
away as possible from the violation of the law, 
not only because he respects the law but also be- 
cause he respects himself and his neighbors whom 
the law protects. He is not concerned about how 
near he can go to the edge but he is eager to do all 
in his power for the safety of society. 



30 A Civic Reader 

The Test of Honesty 

The boy who would rob an orchard but for the 
presence of a bull-dog on the premises would take 
money from the drawer if he could be certain that 
no one would detect him. He would fail to pay his 
fare on the car if the conductor did not watch him. 
He would place the finest berries at the top of the 
box. Such a boy is not honest with himself and, 
therefore, he will not be honest with others. We 
do not trust such a boy and we feel quite certain 
that the habit of dishonesty will grow upon him and 
that when he becomes a man he will bear watching 
in every business transaction. A Police Judge tells 
of a family in which there were three boys. When 
the mother went to market one of the boys went 
with her and while she was making her purchases 
this boy would take a potato, a turnip, or an apple. 
At the next stand he would do the same. When they 
reached home he would show the articles he had 
taken and the mother gave him praise. Little did 
that mother think that in after years she would see 
two of her boys as convicts in the penitentiary. 
But such was the case. The habit grew upon them 
and they became confirmed thieves. They came to 
think that their petty stealing was quite all right 
so long as they were not caught. The boy ,who 
scorns to take an apple or a penny that does not be- 
long to him will not take the dollar that belongs 
to another when he becomes a man. 

An Example of Law Observance 

A young man who works in a bank says that 
the money he handles in doing his work does not 



Respect for Law 31 

seem to be money at all. When he draws his pay- 
on Saturday the bills he receives become money 
only when they become his. So long as the money 
is not his it does not seem to be money and so 
offers no temptation to him. It takes on value only 
when it becomes his property. This young man is 
proof against temptation and the bank is glad to 
have him. He is not honest merely because there 
is a law against dishonesty but because there is 
something inside him that makes it impossible for 
him to take what belongs to someone else. He re- 
spects the lav/, to be sure, and it is easy for him to 
do so since he respects the law within himself that 
is even more important to him than the law that is 
printed in the books. Like the coachman he keeps 
as far as possible away from the edge of the cliff. 
He has no fears of the law for the lav/ was not 
made for such as he. He obeys the law, but his 
conduct would be the same if there were no such 
law. If the law against stealing should be repealed 
it would make no difference to him. He would 
do then just as he is doing now, for he carries with 
him at all hours of the day a law that controls his 
conduct and this law can not be repealed. He walks 
through life with head erect because there is nothing 
in his life that causes him to fear the law. 

The Spirit of the Golden Rule 

A father once said to his sons : "Boys, I hope 
you'll see to it that your word is always as good 
as your bond." He meant by this that when they 
said a thing people would take it at face value just 



32 A Civic Reader 

as if they had taken an oath as to the truth of 
what they said. If all men would see to it that their 
word is as good as their bond life would become far 
more agreeable for us all. It seems a pity that we 
must put men under oath to get them to tell the 
truth. If that father had added that he hoped his 
boys would never have occasion to fear the law, he 
would have given them a rule of conduct that is 
both broad and deep. If every person always told 
the exact truth and never felt any fear of the law 
society would be working close to the spirit of the 
Golden Rule. We should then be doing the right 
because it is right and not because the law tells us 
to do it. We might even do right in larger measure 
than the law directs. In a game of base-ball be- 
tween rival cities a boy reached third base when the 
score was a tie. The people of his city were cheer- 
ing him lustily when, all at once, he left the base 
and went toward the bench. The boys called to 
him to go back saying that the umpire had called 
"Safe." But the boy went on saying as he went 
"I was out; the umpire couldn't see." He lost the 
game for his team but won a victory for his city 
that made a game seem puny by comparison. That 
boy did right because it was right and was showing 
respect for the law within him which is bigger than 
the rules of base-ball. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Who in your community do not respect the law? What 
is sometimes done with these people? Are the Courts having 
more or less to do than a few years ago? Why? Why is the 



Respect for Law 33 

Governor of the state an official of the law? -Name and locate 
all the public buildings of your city or county. Do you know 
the use to which all these buildings are put? Which is the best 
used public building o»f your community? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Name several reasons given by people who disobey the 
law. What secret organizations of law-breakers have become 
known all over our country? When does an automobile driver 
become a law breaker? After each member of the class talks 
with some older person about the value of law let each one tell 
the other members about the conversation. 



IV. AMERICANIZATION 



WE have here a big word at the head of this 
chapter but, even so, it is no bigger than 
the work for which it stands. A great 
many people are just now thinking of this word and 
are trying to find out exactly what it means, how 
this is to be brought about, and what effect it will 
have upon our country as a whole. There are those 
who seem to think that it means merely teaching all 
people to speak and read the English language. 
But it certainly means more than this for there 
are people, even in this country, who can speak and 
read English who, at heart, are not in sympathy 
with true American ideals. Some of these use their 
knowledge of English, not to help our country but 
to harm it. Some of these who speak English have 
been known to blow up mills, factories, bridges, and 
railway trains which were loaded with grain. Some 
of them have set fire to wheat fields when the grain 
was ripe and have destroyed acres upon acres of 
wheat. Some of them have been known to poison 
cattle, hogs, and sheep, and some have even gone 
so far as to destroy human life. They seek to tear 
down and not to build up as real Americans do. 
Though they can speak and read English they are 
opposed to the prosperity and happiness of our 
country far more than many people who do not read 

(34) 



Americanization 35 

and speak English. These English speaking ene- 
mies of our land try to destroy law and order while 
many of foreign birth or parentage are law-abiding, 
orderly, peace-loving folks. 

The American Feeling 

It seems quite clear, then, that there are people 
who have a knowledge of English that are less truly 
American, at heart, than some others who do not 
have a reading or speaking knowledge of the 
language. So, if we are to Americanize all our 
people we must do more than teach them the use 
of the English language. They ought to know the 
language, of course, and they will be eager to learn 
it if they gain the true American feeling. They 
will wish to talk with other Americans in English 
and will long to be able to read our papers and 
books that they may come to know our ways and 
so enter fully into our American life. The language 
will be very important and, also, very useful to 
them but there must be something besides the mere 
knowledge of the language. What that something 
is may not be easy to say but we are quite certain 
that there is something whether we can tell what 
it is or not. If we can find a remedy for anarchy 
we shall have a clue that will lead us to a solution 
of the problem. If we can find a way of making 
such a change in the feeling of the man who is set- 
ting on fire a field of wheat that he will try to put 
out the fire that he himself kindled and will beg 
for a chance to help harvest the wheat he was try- 



36 A Civic Reader 

ing to burn, if we can find a way of bringing about 
such a change as this we shall have made a good 
start toward making this man a true American. 

Helping Others to Gain This Feeling 

For, after all, it is how a man feels toward our 
country that tells whether or not he is a real Ameri- 
can. If he is American at heart, our flag seems to 
him to be the most beautiful and glorious emblem 
that was ever made. If a man doesn't honor our 
flag there is something wrong inside him and he 
lacks the feeling that every genuine American has 
and should have. The true American will fight for 
his flag just as he will fight to protect the good name 
of his mother. For his mother and his flag are both 
held sacred. If we can get the foreigner to feel 
toward our flag as he feels toward his mother he is 
far on the road toward Americanization. If he has 
this feeling toward the flag he will have the same 
feeling toward everything which that flag repre- 
sents. He will have a kindly feeling toward the 
school and will be glad to have his children attend 
and glad, too, to pay his share of the taxes to sup- 
port it. When the fertile fields and their bounteous 
crops smile at him he will smile back at them and 
will find great joy in thinking of the food those 
fields are giving to American homes. He takes a 
deep personal interest in these crops for they are 
a part of the prosperity of the country he loves. He 
takes pride in our railroads, in our bridges, in our 
mills, and in our factories for they are a part of 



Americanization 37 

the things for which our flag stands. To destroy 
one of these would seem to him nothing less than 
crime. 

The True American Spirit 

And we well know that it is quite possible for 
people who were born in other countries to gain this 
feeling toward things American and to adopt our 
country as their own. There are many such people 
in our country now who are as truly American as 
those who were born here. Much the same thing 
happens when a family moves from Florida to 
Michigan. They love the old home and grieve to 
leave it. They shed tears as they say goodbye to 
the garden, the trees, the flowers, the birds, and 
the neighbors. There is a real vacancy in their 
lives and for weeks they long to see the old home 
again. But there comes a time when they love 
the garden of the new hortle, the flowers, and the 
trees quite as much as they did the others. Then, 
too, they find that their new neighbors are better 
than any they ever expected to find in the new place. 
In time the memory of the old home grows dim and 
they find so much joy in the new home that they 
no longer grieve for the old one. Now the new home 
is their home, the new neighbors are their neigh- 
bors, and they have a part in everything that has 
to do with the welfare of the new place. The 
children are made to feel at home in the school, 
the parents mingle with the people at church and 
social affairs, and they are treated just as if they 
had always lived there. They now have the same 



38 A Civic Header 

feeling for their new home which they used to have 
for the old one for they are busy, contented, pros- 
perous, and happy. 

Neighborhood Feeling 

Nor did this family gain this love for their new 
home without help. The neighbors were of great 
service to them. These neighbors came to see them 
as good friends and not as missionaries; not as 
superiors but as equals. These neighbors could tell 
them many things about Michigan but could, also, 
learn many things which were useful to them about 
Florida. The members of this family had brought 
with them certain ways of doing things that were 
better than the ones that were used in the new 
neighborhood and the neighbors were kind enough 
and big enough to adopt these better ways and to 
be grateful for them. The father of the family gave 
the men many new suggestions as to how they could 
do their work to better advantage; the mother 
taught the women new ways of preparing food, new 
methods of caring for their homes, and told them 
of books, music, and art about which she had 
learned in the old home; and the children taught 
their schoolmates how to play new games and how 
to do the work of the school in better ways. Both 
the teacher and the pupils were glad to learn these 
new ways and the school was all the better because 
of the new pupils. Both the family and the neigh- 
bors were glad for these exchanges of ideas as to 
the problems connected with their daily life and the 
whole neighborhood was the gainer. And the new- 



Americanization 39 

comers came to feel quite at home among their 
neighbors for the give and take plan worked well 
and gave to all of them a feeling of good-will and 
comfort. 

Helping One Another 
It is clear, of course, that we native Americans 
are the neighbors of the story and the foreignborn 
and their children are the new-comers. They have 
come here to live among us and to be a part of us. 
They feel strange, to be sure, for our ways are new 
to them and the very least we can do is to make 
them feel that they are at home here, and that they 
are among friends. Their ways may differ from 
ours but that does not prove that our ways are 
better than theirs. If they come from Holland they 
may wear wooden shoes but who shall say that some 
of the shoes we wear are more comfortable than 
their wooden ones ? Their cooking may differ from 
ours, but who shall say that we can not learn from 
them ? The Italians have taught us how to prepare 
new dishes and we are grateful to them. The 
Chinese have done the same and the American bill 
of fare is longer and better because we have been 
willing to learn from them. At the same time, they 
have been learning our ways and, thus, there has 
come about an exchange of ideas which has been 
good for all of us. Their children attend our schools 
where our American boys and girls have been kind 
to them and have taken them into their games and 
made them feel comfortable and at home. The 
teachers go to the homes of these pupils and become 
acquainted with their parents, and invite them to 



40 A Civic Reader 

the school as well as to the school entertainments. 
In this way they are gradually learning our ways 
and are coming to feel at home with us. 

Haw We May Help 

The children are learning to speak and read 
English in the schools and the parents long to do 
the same. So, our teachers and citizens are arrang- 
ing night schools for them and many of them are 
glad to attend. Their children help them at home 
and when they can make out to read simple English 
they are very glad and proud and feel that the 
neighbors are good to them. The more they come 
to feel this the better opinion they will have of us 
and our country. If we should hold aloof from 
them and make them feel that they are beneath us 
they would become homesick and would long to go 
back. But if we meet them half way they will come 
the other half with gladness and they will be good 
for us just as we shall be good for them. In our 
neighborhood meetings they will furnish music that 
will delight us ; or they will tell us about their old 
home in a way that will charm. Then we can 
tell them more about our land, about our homes, our 
schools, our government, and about our farms and 
we shall all be good folks together. The people 
from Norway, Sweden, and Holland have taught 
us much about farming, gardening and dairying and 
they can teach us much more if only we will go to 
them as learners. In fact, if we will go to any 
of these foreigners as learners they will teach us 



Americanization 4 1 

quite as many things as we can teach them. They 
will be glad to become our teachers if only we are 
willing to learn. 

Setting Good Examples 

If we go to them as learners we shall soon win 
their confidence. If we show them that we believe 
in them they will all the sooner come to believe in 
us. To gain their confidence we must show our- 
selves worthy of confidence. Then they will be glad 
to copy our ways. It would be sad to have them 
copy the ways of those Americans who are coarse, 
boorish, ignorant, profane, loud, and cheap. They 
would be far better off to remain as they are. We 
would have them copy those of our people who are 
educated, cultured, modest, and high-grade. So 
a big task lies before all of us who call ourselves 
Americans. They ought not adopt our ways unless 
we can show them that our conduct merits their 
approval and admiration. We need not expect them 
to take us on faith. They will be watching us 
closely every day and they have a right to do so. 
If our conduct is not right they will soon find it 
out and will shy off from us and our ways. We 
must show ourselves to be their sincere friends be- 
fore we can hope that they will be friendly to us. 
If they find that we are trying to use them for our 
own profit, if they find that we are not treating 
them fairly and honestly, they will distrust and 
turn away from us. So the best way to American- 



42 A Civic Reader 

ize these new-comers is for all of us to show our- 
selves to be true, honorable, sincere, and friendly 
Americans. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Who are the best Americans? Why do we require people 
who live in America to be Americans? Name as many reasons 
as you can why America is the best place on Earth to live? 
Why does the flag of our Country mean so much to every boy 
and girl? Why should every school room of the United States 
have an American flag unfurled at all times? Why is it fair 
to require every boy and girl to go to school? Are we better 
Americans than we were a few years ago? Why? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Find out the best statements made about our Country by 
each of the following men and women : George Washington, 
Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Jane 
Adams, and Theodore Roosevelt. Name at least ten great 
Americans who showed their American spirit during the Great 
War. Show how in many ways the public schools teach true 
Americanism. 



V. THE ADOPTED AMERICAN 



'^"T^VERY boy and every girl ought, sometime, 
rL to red the book entitled "The Making of 
* An American" by Jacob A. Riis. His home 
was in Ribe, Denmark. For four years he lived in 
Copenhagen learning the carpenter's trade. Then, 
in 1870, he came to America at the age of about 
twenty-one. He sailed from Glasgow on the steamer 
Iowa and after a long and stormy voyage landed in 
New York. Some friends in Ribe had given him 
forty dollars to help him on his way to fame and 
fortune in his new world knowing that he had 
barely enough to pay his passage in the steerage. 
He had heard many stories about the wildness of 
our country and, so, thought it necessary to buy a 
large navy revolver. For this he paid one-half his 
remaining capital. This weapon he wore on the 
outside of his coat feeling that he was thus equipped 
to hold his own with any of the wild things which 
he might meet on Broadway or elsewhere. His 
first lesson came from a friendly policeman who 
took him in tow and explained to him that a revolver 
was not a necessary part of a young man's equip- 
ment in New York and advised him to put it away. 
The stories he had heard led him to believe that he 
might see lions and buffaloes charging along the 
streets. As he, himself, says in his book "I was 
very green." 

(43) 



44 A Civic Reader 

The White Soul 

This story of the revolver shows us what wrong 
notions some foreigners have of our country. There 
are wild animals in the mountains of the West, to 
be sure, but the young Dane did not know that these 
mountains are more than two thousand miles away 
from Broadway. Indeed, it is quite possible that 
the people of the little country of Denmark do not 
know that it takes five or six days, at least, to 
travel the length of our country in a fast train. We 
may smile at the young foreigner and his revolver 
but he was in need of a friend just as every for- 
eigner who comes to us needs sympathy and help. 
The policeman did young Riis a real service and, 
at the same time, taught every other American a 
useful lesson. Jacob Riis, standing there on Broad- 
way with a revolver strapped about him and with 
only a few dollars in his pockets represents the 
many thousands who come from other lands to 
make their home among us. He was green, of 
course, just as we should be if we went to his 
country. But as Theodore Roosevelt said of him 
"He had a white soul." He had pluck, perseverance, 
industry, and right purposes. He came to our land 
not to loaf, not to sponge his way, but to work. He 
had a hard struggle but he did not give up or whine, 
but went right on working. When he died in 1914 
Mr. Roosevelt said of him "If I were asked to name 
a fellow-man who came nearest to being the ideal 
American citizen, I should name Jacob Riis." 



The Adopted American 45 

Pluck And Hard Work 

After trying to get work in New York for four 
days without success he joined a gang and went out 
to Brady's Bend Iron Works near Pittsburgh. 
There he built huts for the miners. Then he tried 
coal-mining but one day of that was all he cared 
for, so he went back to the carpenter-shop. Then 
the Franco-Prussian war began and he was eager 
to go back to help the French. Drawing his pay 
he went to Buffalo, pawned his trunk and contents, 
and finally arrived in New York with just one cent. 
His appeal to the French met a cold reception, so 
he pawned his revolver and boots to pay for his 
lodging, was turned out and told to come back when 
he had more money. His only possessions were a 
gripsack, a linen duster, and a pair of socks. With 
these he started out to hunt work. He worked on 
a truck-farm three days, did odd jobs about the 
country to pay for his meals, then worked two days 
in a clay-bank, and finally got work in a brick-yard 
at twenty-two dollars a month. Here he worked 
six weeks and then made another effort to get to 
France as a soldier that came to nothing. His 
money was gone, he could get no work and he was 
forced to join the great army of tramps "wander- 
ing about the streets" as he tells us "in the day- 
time with the one aim of somehow stilling the 
hunger that gnawed at my vitals, and fighting at 
night with vagrant curs or outcasts as miserable 
as myself for the protection of some sheltering ash- 
bin or doorway. I was too proud in all my misery 
to beg. I do not believe I ever did." 



46 A Civic Reader 

Poverty And Perseverance 

In a chapter on "Working and Wandering" he 
tells us of one of the many kinds of work he did and 
his much roaming about. His keen sense of humor 
enabled him to laugh at hardships. As he tells us 
"I was out to twist the wheel of fortune my way 
when I could get my hands upon it. I never doubted 
that I should do that sooner or later, if only I kept 
on doing things." When he lost one job he started 
in search of another. In his tramping about he 
often did not taste food for a whole day — some- 
times longer. But he did not give up. He had too 
much grit for that. So we find him felling trees, 
cutting ice, repairing a steamer, trapping musk- 
rats, being hired man on a farm, milking the cows 
and doing the chores, working on the railroad as 
one of a gang, and finally going toward Buffalo. 
As he tells us "I walked day and night, pursued in 
the night by a hundred skulking curs that lurked 
behind trees until I came abreast of them and then 
sallied out to challenge my progress. I stoned 
them and went on. Monday's setting sun saw me 
outside Buffalo, tired, but with a new purpose. I 
had walked fifty miles without stopping or eating. 
I slept under a shed that night and the very next 
day found work at good wages. * * * I kept 
that up all winter and became quite opulent even 
to the extent of buying a new suit of clothes the 
first I had had since I landed." 

Jacob Becomes a Reporter 

His father was a teacher and did editorial work 
on the local paper. So, it was quite natural that 



The Adopted American 47 

Jacob should think of becoming a reporter. He had 
had so much experience in the slum districts, sleep- 
ing with other tramps in the police station, and 
being turned out into the rain and cold by police 
officials that he had many facts in his mind if he 
should ever get a chance to use them. But the 
chance had not yet come. So, he did many other 
things while waiting. He sold tables — so many 
of them, in fact, that he drove the firm into bank- 
ruptcy. However, it was not his fault but, rather, 
the fault of the firm's wrong calculations. Instead 
of getting more than four hundred dollars he got 
exactly seventy-five cents. Then he sold flat-irons, 
and then books and finally got a place as a reporter. 
In this work he had many ups and down. His first 
work in this line was a banquet at the Astor House 
where he saw a wealth of good things to eat — and 
he had gone without food for three days. Later he 
worked on a paper in Brooklyn and when it failed 
he bought it and made such a success of it that he 
sold it for five times its cost and set out at once 
for Denmark where he was married to Elizabeth 
the girl of whom he had been dreaming and for 
whom he had been working and suffering for six 
years. 

Newspaper Work 

He soon returned to New York and began his 
newspaper work in dead earnest. His ambition 
was to do away with crime, and dirt, and political 
abuses. Theories did not greatly concern him but 
facts became his artillery. So he told the facts as 
he knew them from harsh experience. He was 



48 A Civic Reader 

laughed at, and persecuted but went right on. But 
print was not enough for his purpose, so, he learned 
photography and when the flashlight came about, 
he used to show conditions as they were. He took 
pictures of the slums and of the tenement houses 
that reeked with disease because they were so over- 
crowded with people. There was no denying the 
evidence of the camera and the landlords quaked 
in their shoes when they saw the pictures he 
printed. At one place he found fifteen people sleep- 
ing in a space that was barely sufficient for five. 
Among these was a baby only a week old. When 
people came to know of these conditions they were 
aroused and made demands upon the health authori- 
ties for improvement. His pictures showed alleys 
and cellars that reeked with filth. Mulberry Bend 
was the home of dirt and crime and upon this he 
turned his battery of facts day after day until 
finally the rookeries were torn down and the light 
of the sun was let in. 

Cleaning Up New York 

No one can read the work of this Dane and 
not have the feeling that he was heroic. Nor could 
he ever have done what he did if he had not had a 
deep feeling for the welfare of his fellow-men 
whether native or foreign. When he began his work 
the officials treated the unfortunates as if they had 
no souls and no feelings. The great work of Jacob 
Riis was his proving to these officials and to the 
people, in general, that the poor people who crowded 
the tenements, the tramps who thronged the police 



The Adopted American 49 

stations, and the outcasts all have souls. The 
tramps had been told to move on but Jacob Riis 
inspired them to move upward and led them to be- 
lieve that they still had a fighting chance for decency 
and right living. He had been a tramp himself 
and he knew. The pity of it was that while this 
foreigner was working with might and main to 
give the outcasts a chance he was ridiculed by 
native Americans who made light of his work. 
While he was striving to do away with crime, and 
disease, and filth, there were those who placed ob- 
stacles in his way because his work was taking 
money from their pockets. They seemed not to 
care for the souls of people so long as they could 
reap a harvest of dollars. 

His Friend Theodore Roosevelt 

When Colonel Roosevelt came upon the scene 
Jacob Riis found in him a strong ally. Mr. Riis 
tells of his coming in these words: "We were 
not strangers. It could not have been long after 
I wrote Hoiv the Other Half Lives when he came to 
the Evening Sun office one day looking for me. I 
was out, and he left his card, merely writing on 
the back of it that he had read my book and had 
'come to help'. That was all and it tells the whole 
story of the man. I loved him from the first day I 
saw him ; nor ever in all the years that have passed 
has he failed of the promise he made then. No 
one ever helped as he did. For two years we were 
brothers in Mulberry Street. When he left I had 

4 



50 A Civic Reader 

seen its golden age." This gives us a fine picture 
of Mr. Roosevelt. Here was a great American who 
had come to help a foreigner clean up and Ameri- 
canize the worst part of a great city where dirt, and 
disease, and vice held sway over a section that con- 
tained a million people. And they did clean it up. 
They built school-houses where before there had 
been gambling-dens, saloons, and filthy tenement- 
houses. They made public parks and play-grounds 
for children, and made them beautiful with grass 
and flowers. They did away with dark alleys that 
abounded in slime and vermin and let in the sun- 
light to make them into streets that were clean and 
wholesome where people could live as people should 
live. 

A Life of Service 
This story of the noble w r ork of Jacob Riis is 
certain to make every boy, who reads it, whether 
foreign-born or native-born, feel that he, too, can 
do some large service for his country. There are 
still many things to be done, and every day can 
be made a clean-up day. We still have vice, and 
ignorance, and grime and the boys and girls of our 
land need not stand idle for lack of something to 
do. In the cities, and towns, and even in the coun- 
try there are many conditions that can be made 
better. This foreigner has shown us the way and 
our country owes him honor and gratitude. In 
working for the w r ell-being of our country he became 
a stalwart American. He worked out his own sal- 
vation in working for us. His career shows how 
thoroughly American the foreigner can become. 



The Adopted American 51 

We have many such adopted Americans who are 
doing noble service for this land of their adoption. 
Once when Mr. Riis had gone back to Denmark 
on a visit he was taken ill. Then one day looking 
out the window of his sick-room he saw a ship going 
by that carried the American flag. As he tell us "I 
sat up in bed and shouted, laughed and cried by 
turns, waving my handkerchief to the flag out there. 
They thought I had lost my head, but I told them 
no, thank God! I had found it, and my heart, too, 
at last. I knew then that it was my flag, that my 
children's home was mine, indeed; that I also had 
become an American in truth." Most heartily 
would Jacob Riis have given the Flag Salute that 
came to us from another foreign-born Mr. Israel 
Zangwill: "Flag of our Great Republic, Guardian 
of our homes, whose stars and stripes stand for 
virtue, liberty, truth, and union, we salute thee! 
We, the people of distant lands, who find rest under 
thy folds, do pledge our lives, our hearts, our sacred 
honor, to love and protect thee, our flag and the lib- 
erty of the American people forever !" 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Why do you like the story of Jacob A. Riis? Can you 
tell another story just about like this one? Why did Theodore 
Roosevelt like such a man? What good did all the suffering 
of Jacob Riis do him? Would you not like a story better if 
it did not have so much suffering portrayed in it? Why not? 
Was Jacob Riis ever a tramp? Did Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. 
Riis do what they did for New York for themselves or for the 
people of New York? 



52 A Civic Reader 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a careful study of the regulations which keep 
out certain undesirable people from our country. Find out as 
much as you can about the deportation of people from the 
United States directly following the Great War. If possible 
make some inquiry among the foreigners of your community 
as to why they came to this country and whether or not they 
expect to return to their native land. A survey under the di- 
rection of the teacher concerning this question would be very 
beneficial to all concerned. Discuss to some extent as to 
whether or not slum districts may be avoided in large villages 
and cities. 



VI. THE ARTIST CITIZEN 



A GIRL may be an artist in the kitchen wash- 
ing dishes quite as truly as in the parlor 
playing the piano or in the studio painting 
a picture. It all depends upon how she feels while 
she is doing the work. Elbert Hubbard once said 
"Art is the expression of man's joy in his work." 
So, if the girl finds joy in making the dishes, glass- 
ware and silver shine and in making the kitchen 
clean and orderly, she is an artist at heart and the 
artistic work she does is an expression of her 
artistic self. We all express ourselves in various 
ways. Our speech, and our writing are the two 
most common ways. The cartoonist expresses him- 
self in pictures, while the sculptor expresses himself 
in statues. Then, again, people express themselves 
in their dress. If they are slovenly in their feel- 
ings they will be dowdy in their dress. We all 
express ourselves in our work. It is our work that 
tells what sort of people we really are. If we go 
into the kitchen after the girl has finished her work 
we can tell whether or not she is an artist. We 
can tell whether she found joy in her work or 
whether she did it grudgingly in her haste to get 
at something else. If she found no joy in her work 
the kitchen will show it. It will show that the work 
was done in a hasty slovenly way, and that the 

(53) 



54 A Civic Reader 

girl took no pnae in her work, but was probably 
frowning and scolding all the while, and not singing 
or whistling. 

The Artist in Home Work 

The girl who bakes a beautiful brown loaf has 
a right to take pride in it and her joy in this bit 
of work proves that she is an artist at heart. She 
can be an artist cook as well as an artist musician 
and she will find joy in doing both. The loaf is one 
way in which she expresses herself and the music 
is another. In her bed-room, too, she proves that 
she is an artist. Until the be.d is made up, the floor 
swept, the furniture dusted and polished, the 
clothing all put into place, and everything made 
spick-and-span, she does not feel comfortable. But 
when she has made everything just right she looks 
upon the work with great pride for the room is now 
another expression of herself. The boy who is an 
artist gardener finds the same joy in his work as 
the girl finds in hers. He sees to it that his garden 
is made a delight to the eye. The rows are straight, 
the soil is made rich and fine, there is complete 
absence of weeds, the plants are supplied with water, 
and the soil is kept loose. Nothing short of this 
will satisfy him. This garden is telling all who 
see it what sort of boy he is and he would blush 
to have it tell that he is lazy, or slovenly. He can 
not be either for he is an artist and his garden must 
express himself. When the work is done, the water- 
ing-can is put back where it belongs, the hoe is hung 



The Artist Citizen 55 

up in the shed, the weeds are carted away to the 
manure pile, and everything is made ship-shape. 
m 

The Artist Farmer 

If this boy becomes a farmer he will be an 
artist farmer for there are farmers who are artists 
in every phase of their work. The artist farmer 
keeps his fences and out-buildings in good repair. 
He fertilizes his fields and cultivates them with 
great industry and thus causes them to produce 
crops which are abundant in quantity and excellent 
in quality. He sprays his trees at the right time 
and insures much good fruit. He provides for the 
comfort and well-being of his live stock. He gives 
them the right sort of food and shelters them from 
storm and cold. When the season is over he cleans 
ail the farm implements and stores them in the 
.shed for the winter. Nothing less than system can 
satisfy him. His fields, fences, orchards, garden, 
implements, and stock tell us what sort of man he 
is. Again, his farm is an expression of himself. 
Seeing that he is an artist every feature of his work 
will show his artistic touch. Weeds, briars, and 
haphazard methods would jar upon such a man as 
this. He will go out of his way to pull a weed or 
to drive a nail into a board that has become loose. 
He is master of his work and never permits it to 
master him. His neighbors come to him for advice 
for they see at once that his ways of doing things 
bring success. His products bring fancy prices 
for he has an established reputation in the markets. 



56 A Civic Reader 

His vegetables, fruits, and grain are always in de- 
mand, for they are among the expressions of him- 
self. 

The Artist Grocer 

According to Mr. Hubbard's definition of art 
the grocer is an artist if he finds joy in his work. 
There are some grocers, as we all know, who are 
truly artistic. In such a grocery the customer finds 
it a pleasant experience to look about at the orderly 
arrangement of goods, the clean floors and shelves, 
and the complete absence of anything that would 
offend good taste. There are no decayed vegetables 
or fruits to be seen, nor has any soil been allowed 
to remain upon them. They are all clean and seem 
just to have come from the garden or the orchard. 
Nor are they dumped upon the floor but are placed 
in clean bright baskets or boxes. Not only so, but 
each clerk knows that he must treat each customer 
with courtesy and give to every package an at- 
tractive appearance. Only such conduct will satisfy 
the demands of the grocer. He is an artist and 
everything about him must be clean and artistic. 
What he desires for his grocery he desires, also, 
for his home, his neighborhood, and for the entire 
community. His home surroundings are kept as 
clean and sanitary as his grocery. There are no 
broken windows in his house, no broken door-knobs, 
and no broken fixtures. The back yard is as clean 
as the front yard. Dirt and junk he will not have. 
A broken pavement must be fixed at once and when 
the street needs repairs he does not rest until the 
work is done. He is clean in his person and in his 



The Artist Citizen 57 

habits and would have all that belongs to him 
equally so. 

The Joy of Artistic Work 

What is true of the grocer is true, also of the 
barber, the carpenter, the plumber, the brick-layer, 
the plasterer, and the street-sweeper. They are all 
artists if they do their work with joy and take pride 
in it. The artist takes deep and continued interest 
in his work and is, all the while, trying to turn off 
the best piece of work that ever left his hands. He 
is thinking far more about doing excellent work 
than about shorter hours and larger pay. He is 
trying to do work of such quality that his employer 
will recognize its merit and pay him accordingly. 
He does not watch the clock. He is so much inter- 
ested in his work that he would be glad to have 
another hour or two in which to finish. These same 
things may be said of the milliner, the dress-maker, 
the nurse, and the stenographer. If they find joy 
in their work they are artists, too. If their work is 
drudgery to them they are mere time-servers. They 
are artisans but not artists. The artist insists that 
her work shall be genuine whether she is a milliner, 
a sales-woman, or a house-keeper. There must be 
no veneer and no covering up of defects. Her work 
must be as good on the inside as it is on the out- 
side. There must be nothing false or fictitious 
about it. The artist is sincere and genuine, and, 
therefore, her work is sincere and genuine, whether 
it is a hat, a dress, a loaf, or a painting. 



58 A Civic Reader 

The Artist Pupil 

Boys ana girls who are artists will be at much 
pains to make their school-rooms, their homes, and 
the street on which they live clean and beautiful. 
They see to it that no injury is done to the trees 
along the street. They gladly water the flowers or 
sprinkle the lawn for a neighbor that there may 
be no loss of beauty. They are quick to see litter on 
the street and are eager to remove it. They are glad 
to stop their play for a moment to pick up loose 
paper from the street. When they clean the black- 
board at school they do the work thoroughly. They 
say that the board is either clean or it isn't. There 
can be no half-way work with them. They feel that 
if the work is not worth doing well it is not worth 
doing at all. So their work is always clear-cut 
with never either a smear or a blur. There is no 
such thing as "a lick and a promise" with them. 
If a girl tidies up the teacher's desk that work be- 
comes the most important thing in the world for 
her until she finishes it and then she goes to the 
next one and does it with equal thoroughness. If 
the boy is sharpening a pencil for the teacher he 
does not haggle it but takes such pains with it that 
he does not need to apologize either to himself or to 
the teacher. If he is cleaning snow from the walk 
he does not stop until the walk is clean. Then, and 
only then, can he look upon his work with a smile 
for he knows an artistic bit of work when he sees 
it, even if it is his own. 



The Artist Citizen 59 

The Public Official 

When the artist citizen is elected to a public 
office he takes with him into public affairs the same 
feeling for right conditions that he has for his 
private affairs. If he is a county official he sees 
to it that the property of the county is kept in good 
repair. He can not have it look slovenly or dirty. 
He has too much pride in himself and his work 
for that. The roads, the bridges, the ditches, and 
the county buildings must be kept in such excellent 
condition that all the people of the county will find 
them a source of pleasure. He would have all these 
people gain the feeling of artists and he knows 
that cleanliness and order in county affairs will 
help them to gain this feeling. If this artist citizen 
becomes a state official he has this same feeling as 
to all the property of the state. He insists that all 
the wards of the state shall have the best possible 
conditions in which to live. Their lives are drab 
enough at the best and he is eager to ease their 
burdens as much as possible. He would give them 
lawns, flowers, trees, and birds to bring them joy, 
as well as all the things that will give them health, 
If he becomes a member of the legislature he takes 
with him a deep desire to place such laws on the 
books as will give to every man, woman, and child 
in the state a better chance to have health, pr 
perity, and happiness. He examines every measure 
that is proposed with this in mind and works with 
the utmost diligence to improve conditions for all 
the people. 



60 A Civic Reader 

Looking Forward 

When all our people have become artist citizens 
there will come to pass many changes in our ways 
of doing things. Many things as we do them now 
will then seem crude and wrong. Ugly things will 
disappear and beautiful things will take their 
places. We shall no longer make things that are 
ugly because there will be no demand for them. 
Our streets, our pavements, our country roads, and 
even our alleys will be kept clean and in good re- 
pair. Our houses, our outbuildings, and our fences 
will all be pleasing to the eye. There will be no 
mud-holes, no filth and no weed-patches. The places 
that now breed flies will be made clean and the 
flies will disappear, for flies and dirt go together. 
The filthiest places are the places where flies are 
to be found in largest numbers. From these places 
they come into our homes and bring some of the filth 
with them, as well as poisonous germs. They walk 
over our food, leaving a trail of germs. The mother 
would scream if a snake would crawl across her 
baby's face, but a snake is clean when compared 
with a fly. The artist citizen will see to it that flies 
are banished as dangerous pests. He will see that 
sinks, and lavatories are kept as clean as soap, hot 
water, and disinfectants can make them. When 
we all become artist citizens our land will put away 
ugliness in every form and soon become America 
the Beautiful. 



The Artist Citizen 61 

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Is there any girl who really likes to do household work? 
If so find out her explanation. How would you suggest ap- 
proaching a boy in order to develop in him an interest in 
gardening? Is it possible to have boys and girls between the 
ages of 14 and 16 years really interested in work? Why do 
some people do their work better than others every day? Why 
are many people willing to do their work in a slip-shod man- 
ner? Why do the people who employ such labor accept it? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The teacher should find out what each student of the 
class expects to do for a life work. Then inquire what each 
member had expected to do a year or two ago. Incidentally 
this investigation would likely place the question definitely be- 
fore each child as to his future work. Choose the names of 
several men and women of the community who do the work 
they do in the best possible way and see why they do so. This 
will be easy because any one interested in what he is doing 
will gladly tell the reason why. The teacher or some mem- 
ber of the class will likely be able to report concerning a man 
who has held several positions or who has done several kinds 
of work within the last few years. See whether or not this 
man has been successful in what he has done. If not, why not? 
The teacher and students could make a survey of the prop- 
erties within a mile or two of the school building taking especial 
notice of the artistic and clean homes and well kept lawns. 
See if it is possible to find out the reason why some people de- 
sire to do this while other people do not care. 



VII. LEISURE TIME 



IF people who kill time could be arrested for 
murder, the jails would all be crowded. For 
we do kill time, all of us, more or less. Some 
of us kill time by doing nothing, others by doing 
worse than nothing, and still others by doing things 
that are not worth doing at all. If hours were 
gold dollars we would seize them and take care of 
them, without the loss of a single one. But, simply 
because we can not turn them into cash at once 
we fritter them away or, sometimes, kill them with- 
out pity. If these hours were living things and we 
should treat them as we now do we would be 
arrested for cruelty. Sometimes a man uses up an 
hour in telling how much he regrets that he did not 
make better use of his hours in the past. In this 
way he wastes another hour in addition to those 
which he wasted before. Had he used this hour to 
some good purpose we would be more likely to 
think that his regrets were sincere. He can not 
recall the hours that are past but he can use the 
present ones to better advantage. If every person 
should form the habit of making each hour give a 
full account of itself there would be less occasion 
for regrets later on and we would all feel better 
satisfied with ourselves and our work. 

(62) 



Leisure Time 63 

Three Divisions of The Day 

We may divide the day into three parts, allow- 
ing eight hours for work, eight hours for sleep, and 
the remaining hours for other things. Two of these 
are enough for the dining-room and the bath-room, 
and we ought all to take two hours for play. Each 
one must decide for himself how these two play 
hours shall be spent, but, whatever we play at, 
we ought to play in such a hearty way that we shall 
be able to forget all our troubles and even our work 
during these two hours. But there are those who 
will say that they are too busy to play. These 
people merely prove that they do not manage well. 
Some people claim to be busy who have very little 
to show for their busy-ness. They fuss and fume 
around without getting much done. If they were 
at work instead of telling how busy they are they 
could probably find time for the play. Or, if they 
would learn the art of doing more work in a given 
time, they would have time to play. Too many of 
us think we are busy when we are merely using up 
our time doing things of little consequence. Some 
one calls the time thus spent "busy idleness." It 
is easy for some of us to spend much time on things 
that have no real value. The value of a bit of work 
can not be told by the time it takes to do it. Some 
people can do a big piece of work in a short time 
while others take a long time to do a small one. 

The Best Way to Rest 

Some people spend a great deal of time in what 
they call resting. Now, the best sort of rest is to 



64 A Civic Reader 

do something else but these people seem to think 
that the only way to rest is to do nothing. The 
schoolboy gets his rest by playing ball after school 
hours and it is much better for him than idleness. 
He may work at the game much harder than he 
works at his books but it is a rest for all that. The 
banker or the merchant finds that work in the 
garden is a good form of rest. His mind is taken 
off his business and the exercise is a good tonic. 
He comes to the supper table feeling, as he says, 
"like a two-year-old." If he had sat idle during the 
time he spent in the garden he would have come 
to the table feeling weary and dull. The health he 
gains by such a change of work is of more value 
than the vegetables he raises. Many a man has 
a nervous break-down because he has not learned 
how to rest by a change of work. A gymnasium 
is quite all right if the man can not have a garden 
but the garden or its equivalent is far better. The 
garden causes the man to forget himself and think 
of something else. That of itself is restful for it 
is quite true that some people wear themselves out 
by thinking of themselves too much. 

Our Four Hours of Leisure 

But there are still four hours of the day that 
we have not taken into account. We have eight 
hours for sleep, eight for work, two for bath and 
meals, and two for play. What people do with the 
other four tells us what sort of people they are. 
Two men may work side by side for eight hours 
and play together for two hours but we must look 



Leisure Time 65 

to these four hours of leisure to give us a clue as 
to what these two men really are. There were two 
such men working on the street-car line as conduct- 
ors. One of them spent his leisure hours sitting 
around telling stories and exchanging small talk and 
cheap gossip with his mates. The other was at home 
working at mechanical drawing. In three years 
this second man was promoted and soon owned a 
home of his own. He now draws more than twice 
the salary of the first man. This first man calls it 
luck and seems not to know that the second man 
won his home and his double salary by doing some- 
thing worth while in those four hours of leisure. 
Elihu Burritt was a blacksmith but managed some- 
how to find time outside his hours of work at the 
anvil to learn eleven languages. If he had idled 
his leisure time away he w r ould never have known 
all those languages and never would have been 
known in history as the "learned blacksmith." 

The Value of an Hour 

Not counting Sundays and holidays the year 
has quite three hundred days and four hours a day 
gives us twelve hundred hours of leisure each year. 
In twenty years we have twenty-four thousand 
leisure hours. The boy who would accept twenty- 
four thousand dollars for his leisure time for the 
next twenty years and agree to idle or fritter that 
time away would make a sorry bargain. If he can 
not make that leisure time produce more than that 
amount of money in twenty years he must be a 

5 



66 A Civic Reader 

poor sort. He would prove that he hasn't much 
faith in himself. But aside from the money, he 
would rue his bargain every day. The mirror would 
tell him every day what a sorry fool he made of 
himself in selling his leisure for "a mess of pot- 
tage." He would find a thousand chances to use 
those hours to his own profit and pleasure, but he 
must stick to his bargain. The money would give 
him but little comfort. A millionaire once told 
a boy of twelve that he would gladly give up every 
dollar he had and go back to work with a pick 
and shovel if he could go back to the age of twelve 
with the boy's chances. That man valued hours 
at far more than a dollar each. 

The Reading Habit 

It would seem to be a fairly easy matter to read 
twenty pages of a book in an hour. That means 
eighty pages in the four hours of each day's leisure 
time. That, again, means a book of three hundred 
and twenty pages in four days or seventy-five such 
books each year. But there are people who do not 
read ten books in a year. This goes to show that 
they either spend their leisure time in other ways 
or, else, they spend it in idleness. If they would 
read seventy-five books a year, at the end of twenty 
years they would have read fifteen hundred books. 
By reading four hours a day one can easily read 
the Bible through in a year, and yet there are 
people, here and there, who have never read this 
great book through. One can read all that Shake- 
speare has written in a single year and not take 



Leisure Time 67 

any time from regular work, but there are many 
people who have never read a half dozen of his 
plays. They may claim that they do not care for 
Shakespeare but this is a weak excuse. He must 
be worth reading or thousands of other people 
would not read his plays. We know that he is 
the world's greatest writer of plays and, if we can 
not read him, we are merely saying that we are 
not able to read what thousands of others read 
with pleasure. It seems a fair statement that any 
person who reads at all can soon learn to enjoy 
Shakespeare. 

What Can Be Done in Twenty Years 

A girl of average ability certainly can learn to 
play the piano with a fair degree of skill in twelve 
hundred hours if she works at the task sixty min- 
utes an hour with diligence; and a boy can surely 
gain a good degree of mastery of the violin in the 
same way. If the young people devote their leisure 
time to music they will be expert musicians long 
before the end of the twenty-year period. But 
they can dawdle this leisure time away, if they 
elect to do so and have nothing to show for their 
leisure. The boy of twelve can become an expert 
in history in the next twenty years by devoting his 
leisure time to this study. He may be a farmer, 
a mechanic, a merchant, or a lawyer, but, in addi- 
tion to his regular work, he can become an historian. 
But if he fails to use his leisure, he will be only a 
farmer, a mechanic, a merchant, or a lawyer. The 
girl can become an artist in twenty years and still 



68 A Civic Reader 

rank high as a teacher, a nurse, a milliner, a phys- 
ician, or a home-maker. In twenty-four thousand 
hours any boy or girl ought to become expert in 
science, mathematics, or in language. In twenty 
years the girl ought to be able to read Latin, and 
Greek, and speak fluently French, Spanish, and 
Italian, or she can idle away her leisure and have 
no acquaintance with any of these languages. 

Deciding Our Own Future 

We must all decide for ourselves whether we 
shall use our leisure during the next twenty years 
on things that are worth while, such as music, art, 
science, language, history, or invention, or whether 
we shall use it in idle talk or in playing silly games 
just to pass the time away. At the same time we 
shall be deciding whether we are to be worth while 
men and women or whether we prefer to become 
cheap, artificial people. We must decide for our- 
selves; no one else can decide for us. If we elect 
to become cheap folks we shall be cheap to the 
end of life and the world will not miss us when 
we are gone. Many people spend their money fool- 
ishly and far more spend their leisure time fool- 
ishly. If we had cyclometers attached to us that 
would show how many hours of our leisure we trifle 
away the record at the end of twenty years would 
show what kind of people we are. This record 
would not give much comfort to people who look for- 
ward to their hours of leisure as a time for frivolous 
things or blank idleness. Squandering leisure hours 



Leisure Time 69 

is one of our national sins for, as a people, we waste 
enough leisure time to make our country both great 
and beautiful. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Do you know of any one who is opposed to play? If so 
find out the reason why. Name, if possible, three or four dif- 
ferent kinds of rest after work. Try to find out if there is 
any one in the community who works bard but who does not 
accomplish much for the time spent in such work. Why is this 
so? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The teacher should have each student keep a definite rec- 
ora by minutes of how the time was spent for one week, then 
compare the student's record with that of the teacher. The 
teacher should appoint a committee of two or three to take 
notes on the different types of idleness which may be seen in 
the community. A few illustrations of conversation of idle 
people would be interesting. Discuss the question of whether 
or not a change of work is really a rest, such as gardening for 
the bookkeeper or an hour of study for the farmer. 



VIII. WISHING 



WISHING is the best fun there is. It is a 
fine game and every wide-awake per- 
son, man, woman, girl, and boy is play- 
ing at it all the while. The person who is not wishing 
is not really alive though he may be walking around. 
But the person who is wishing shows in his very 
thought and action that he is alive. He is on the 
track of something every minute. He knows where 
he is going and what he is going for. He does not 
dawdle and drag along for he is after something. 
He has no time for loafing, for he has some plan 
in his mind and is busy working it out. He is 
making a straight course toward the thing for 
which he is wishing and works his way through or 
over the obstacles in his path. He is not turned 
aside by rain, or snow, or cold, but goes right on, 
never stopping until he reaches his goal. Then he 
laughs at the trials, the hardships, the hunger, and 
cold that he endured on the way. He was so eager 
to reach his goal that he paid small heed to the dis- 
comforts along the way. The man who is caught 
in a storm on a dark night does not stop because of 
the storm and the darkness but drives on more 
rapidly that he may the sooner reach his home. 
Then he soon forgets about the storm in the joy 
that he has that he has reached the object of his 

(70) 



Wishing 71 

wishing. If he had not been wishing for home 
he would have sought shelter. 

Wishing and Working 

The person who is wishing for something and 
wishing hard will find some way to get it. The 
boy who is wishing for food will find his way some- 
how to the cookie- jar, the pie shelf, or the apple- 
tree. If he does not wish for food he will not 
bother his head about any of these, but will lazy 
around until he gets hungry. The boy who wishes 
hard to have all the problems of his lesson solved 
in time for the recitation will work hard at the task. 
He will not hear the clock strike or the bell ring 
but will dig away at those problems as if he were 
working at a fire to save life and property. But 
the wishing comes first. If he does not wish he 
will not work but will complain that the lesson is too 
long and too hard, or, if he fears a low mark, or a 
scolding, he may get some other boy to solve the 
problems for him. If a girl wishes hard to become 
a musician she will not watch the clock when she is 
practicing. She will forget about the clock and go 
right on past the end of the hour and past the time 
for lunch unless some one reminds her. Her wish 
is the big thing in her life for the time and other 
things are not important. But, if she doesn't wish 
to learn music she will merely put in the time, and 
will accomplish little or nothing. 

Thomas A. Edison 

Somebody tells us that every wish comes true 
if we only wish hard enough. That means, of 



72 A Civic Reader 

course, that the harder we wish the harder we work 
to make our wish come true. Everybody knows 
about Edison. He is a great wisher. Every time 
we look at an electric light we think of him and 
his big wishes. He got to wishing hard to give 
the world an electric light and then worked hard 
to make that wish come true. He became so inter- 
ested in his work that he often forgot about meal- 
time and bed-time. In fact, he has been known to 
keep working on in his laboratory for forty-eight 
hours at a stretch. If he hadn't been wishing hard 
he could not have been hired to do without food and 
sleep. He was not thinking of an eight-hour day; 
he was thinking about the thing he was wishing 
for. And hard work followed close upon the heels 
of his wishing as it always does. Every time we 
see an electric light we shall know that it is one 
of the flowers of his big wish that has blossomed 
forth. He is a dreamer as we all know. He dreams 
of things that no one else has ever thought of and 
then sets to work to make his dreams come true. 
He builds his air-castles first and by hard work 
makes these air-castles real ones. He takes one of 
his air-castles, dips it into a huge bath of hard work, 
and, behold, it is made real. 

Notable Wishers 

Queen Esther once had a wish as noble and 
beautiful as herself and that is putting it very 
strong. Her big wish was that her own people, 
the Jews, might be saved from the persecutions of 
their enemies of whom Haman was the leader. 



Wishing 73 

Now Haman was in high favor with the King and 
that made Esther's task all the more difficult. It 
meant death to her if she did not win the King over 
but she did not hesitate to take the risk. As she 
went into his presence she was saying "I will go 
unto the King though not according to the law and 
if I perish, I perish." Like a brave soldier she 
looked death straight in the eye but did not falter 
or flinch for the wish in her heart gave her courage. 
She won the King's favor, her people were saved, 
and their enemies were punished — all because a 
good and brave woman had a big wish that led 
her on. Rosa Bonheur was a wisher, too. As a 
mere slip of a girl she wished that she might be- 
come an artist and then set to work to make her 
wish come true. And it did come true. If this 
big wish had not taken possession of her she might 
have spent her time preening herself before the 
mirror, painting and powdering her cheeks and in 
other ways making herself cheap. Instead, she 
donned overalls and cap and went to work. Now 
her name is well known by every lover of art the 
world over and her career shows that every wish 
comes true if we only wish hard enough. 

The Results of Wishing 

It would seem, then, that one of the best things 
a boy or girl can do is to get to wishing hard for 
things that are worth while for this is the start on 
the road to deeds that are worth while. No one has 
ever done big things who has never wished for 
any but little things. The boy who wishes for 



74 A Civic Reader 

nothing bigger than a tin whistle or an ice-cream 
cone will not soon write a book, tunnel a mountain, 
or invent a useful machine. We can tell the size 
of people by the things they wish for, when they 
get to wishing hard. If some article of dress is as 
high as a girl's wishes reach we know her size at 
once and feel reasonably certain that she will not 
become a musician, an artist, a writer of books, or 
a leader in community affairs. If we find her wish- 
ing for a college education, for the experience of 
travel to historic places, or for a place among the 
great women of the world we know that she will 
not be petty and superficial when she grows up. 
If we find a boy wishing hard to be a historian, 
scientist, an explorer, or an orator we expect him 
to become a man of distinction and not a mere 
scrub. Many a man tries to excuse himself for not 
making more of life by telling that he was poor, or 
had no encouragement at home. But, the truth is 
he never wished hard to make the most of himself. 
If he had wished hard he would have broken 
through such barriers as these. 

Lincoln as a Wisher 

Lincoln had no encouragement at home and his 
poverty was such as very few boys now have. But 
he broke through. He was a lank, gaunt, ungainly 
lad but had big wishes inside him that carried him 
over or through obstacles that would have caused 
another kind of boy to complain and whine. When 
we see him lying on his stomach before the fire 
digging out his geometry with no teacher to help; 



Wishing 75 

when we see him walking miles to borrow a book 
we know that he had grit and pluck. Beneath and 
behind his grit and pluck was a big wish to know 
things. Later on he wished that the slaves might 
all be free and made a solemn vow that if he ever 
had a chance he would hit slavery and hit it hard. 
He did get his chance and he did hit slavery hard 
but back of the Emancipation Proclamation was 
the wish that got firm hold of him years before. 
He became an orator, a master of English, but this 
did not come by chance. First he wished and then 
he worked. Then the people who neither wished 
nor worked called him lucky, and said he was a 
genius. He was neither of these, but he did have 
his mark set high and kept on working until he 
reached it. We are told that his Gettysburg Speech 
was delivered in about two minutes but it took him 
twenty years of hard work to prepare it. 

Whitney, Peary and Columbus 

Whitney never could or would have given the 
world the cotton-gin nor would Howe have given it 
the sewing-machine, if they had not, first of all, 
done some big wishing. It is said that Howe burned 
some of his furniture to keep him warm while he 
was working out his invention. He never would 
have done that if he had not been in dead earnest. 
To do such a thing as that a man must have a great 
fire of zeal burning in his heart. Without such fire 
Peary never would have endured all the hardships 
that he encountered on his way to the North Pole. 
Columbus could not have been hired to do what he 
did. There was more than wages back of that hard 



76 A Civic Reader 

and dangerous enterprise. He got to wishing hard 
to travel around the world and he would have done 
so if America had not stopped him on the way. 
His men became discouraged but he did not. They 
were working for wages; he was not. He was 
urged on by something that made mere wages seem 
puny by comparison. That big wish of his was 
a part of himself. He could not get away from it 
nor fail to obey it. It had possession of him and 
kept him at his task. The man who is working for 
wages drops his tools as soon as the whistle blows, 
but the man who is led on by a big purpose does not 
hear the whistle. The man who is working for wages 
runs to shelter when the rain comes but the man 
who is obeying a big wish does not heed the rain. 

Opportunities For People Who Wish Hard 

Clara Barton did a big piece of work when 
she organized the American Red Cross; Cyrus W. 
Field did a big piece of work when he stretched a 
cable across the ocean; and George Goethals did a 
big piece of work when he built the Panama Canal. 
But there are many other big things still to be done. 
All we need is big men and women to do them. 
They must be big enough in mind to find out what 
these big things are and then have wishes big 
enough to spur them on. We have not found cures 
for cancer, epilepsy, tuberculosis, and feeble-mind- 
edness yet, and we need some one who is big enough 
to do this work. We have not yet found a way to 
store up the heat of the sun for use in winter in- 
stead of coal and gas ; and we need some one to do 
this piece of work. We have not found a way yet 



Wishing 77 

to induce all people to live according to the Golden 
Rule and we need some one who is big enough to 
do this. We have not found a way yet to cause all 
people to have big wishes instead of little ones and 
we need some one who is big enough for this task. 
There is plenty of work yet to be done and this 
work is calling for people who can wish hard and 
work hard. 

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

When is wishing worth while? When does wishing be- 
come dangerous to your happiness? What was George Wash- 
ington's greatest wish? Why was Aaron Burr a failure on ac- 
count of his wishing? What do you think was Abraham Lin- 
coln's greatest wish? How long do you think he had this wish? 
Show the difference between wishing and being envious. How 
may little wishes grow into big ones? Show for example a 
number of things you have wished for and obtained in one day. 
Why are the bigger wishes often the hardest to have come 
true? Let each member of the class tell of his or her greatest 
wish up to the present time. Why is wishing a good thing to 
practice? Are most of your wishes for your own pleasure or 
for others? Why does wishing make some people unhappy? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Find out how Thomas A. Edison makes his wishes come 
true. Have each member of the class tell of a wish which 
came true and why. Assign to some member of the class the 
reading of "The Great Stone Face," and explain the examples 
of wishing set forth in the story. Can you name any man or 
woman who worked for years for something which was not 
completed or accomplished. Show how many people may have 
the same wish and work for years to accomplish it. Make a 
list of five of the greatest wishes of which you know. What 
was Andrew Jackson's greatest work? Tell something of his 
wishes and how he realized them. 



IX. DOING ONE'S BEST 



A "WRITER of excellent books says, in one of 
them, that it is immoral for any person 
to do less than his best. This means, of 
course, that it is immoral for any one to slight his 
work. If all people did their best there would be 
more and better work done everywhere. The 
farmer would have larger and better crops. The 
carpenter would build better houses. The teacher 
would have a better school. The minister would 
preach better sermons. Law-makers would make 
better laws. The housewife would keep her home 
in better condition and supply better meals. And 
the public official would give better service. The 
boy who does his best in school may not solve all 
the problems of the lesson but he does his best and, 
so, is a moral boy. Another boy may solve all the 
problems and yet not do his best. This boy has not 
made the best use of his time and his powers and, 
so, is immoral. To do our best does not mean that 
we are to excel others ; it means that we are to excel 
ourselves. If we did well yesterday, we must do 
still better today. A cobbler was asked if he did 
not find it monotonous to be driving pegs in shoes 
all day long. "Why, no", he replied "for I'm always 
trying to drive this peg a little slicker than the one 
before." He was trying to excel himself and thus 
was always doing his best. 

(78) 



Doing One's Best 79 

The House-maid and The Farmer 

In a certain home there was a house-maid who 
told her mistress that she had been converted. Then 
the lady asked her how she knew she had been con- 
verted. "Why" she replied "I don't sweep the dirt 
under the rugs any more." Some change had come 
into the life of this maid that led her to do her 
work better than before. She had been slighting 
her work before her conversion and, hence, had not 
been doing her best. The farmer who gets but fifty 
bushels of corn from an acre that would yield eighty 
bushels if well cultivated does less than his best. 
Had he done his best there would be more corn for 
sale and the price would not be so high for those 
who must buy corn. So, he makes the people pay 
more for their corn because he failed to do his best. 
Besides, if he does less than his best in the matter 
of raising corn he will do less than his best in 
other things. He will not care for his live stock 
as he should, and will not keep his fences and out- 
buildings in proper repair. He becomes shiftless 
and slovenly in everything he does and his neigh- 
bors wish that he would move away. They do their 
best and take pride in their fields, orchards, and 
gardens, while he does less than his best and takes 
no pains to help make the neighborhood beautiful 
and prosperous. 

The Telegraph Operator 

A business man who happened to be in a small 
town was anxious to send a telegram and hurried 
to the office at the railroad station for that purpose. 



80 A Civic Reader 

At the door he met the operator coming away. The 
man in a gracious manner explained the situation 
to the operator asking if he would not send the 
message for him. The young man very bluntly 
told him he would not and added that he was not 
paid for working over time and that the man should 
have come earlier. To this the man replied "Young 
man, I'd be glad to have the message sent but you 
are losing more by refusing to send it than I am 
by my failure to get it sent. You can not hope for 
promotion if you are indifferent to the interests of 
the people for whom you are working. They would 
not dare put you in charge of a large office fearing 
you might close the door in the face of a profitable 
customer. ■ So, you are doomed to spend your days in 
some such little office as this unless you face about 
and begin thinking of the interests of your com- 
pany instead of your own supper. Your wife would 
be glad to wait supper ten minutes if, by so doing, 
she could be assured that her husband was working 
toward a better place and a larger salary. Young 
man, it never pays to see how little you can do for 
the salary you receive, but it does pay to see to 
it that your company come to learn that they may 
rely upon you for the best that is in you." 

"The Best That is in You" 

That operator had not done his best. He had 
deprived the company of the price of the message; 
he had failed to help the business man in an emerg- 
ency ; and he had brought upon himself a talk from 
the man that gave him much concern. He would 



Doing One's Best 81 

have sent the message if he could have put the 
money into his own pocket. He would not steal 
a dollar but he felt that he had done what amounted 
to stealing in his failure to put a dollar into the 
pocket of his employer. He was honest enough to 
admit that. On his way home the words of the 
man came to his mind again and again "the best 
that is in you — the best that is in you." In his 
sleep that night he kept repeating the words "the 
best that is in you" and his wife wondered what 
could be disturbing his dreams. 

Two Proverbs 

There is a Spanish proverb which says "The 
good is the enemy of the best." This means, among 
other things that the person who is satisfied with 
work that is merely good will not try to do work 
that is his best. There is another saying that is 
better than the Spanish proverb. This saying is 
"Only the best is good enough." This is an excellent 
motto for the mechanic, the lawyer, the public 
official, the farmer, and the pupil. It is said that 
Stevenson rewrote one of his books not fewer than 
seven times, so anxious was he to do his best. It 
would have shamed him to give to his readers his 
second-best or his third-best. All through life he 
would have been asking himself the question "Why 
didn't I do my best?" The boy who mows the lawn 
or does an errand for his mother can easily tell 
whether he did his best or whether he did his second- 
best. The girl who washes the dishes, sweeps the 

6 



82 A Civic Reader 

floor, or makes the beds can tell whether she did her 
best or whether she slighted her work. The man 
who repairs a machine knows whether he gave his 
customer the best that was in him. The dentist 
knows whether his work is merely good, or whether 
it is his best. We shall have shoddy work, just as 
we have shoddy goods if the worker does less than 
his best. 

An Example of Doing One's Best 

If the gardener always did his best his garden 
would be free from weeds and his vegetables would 
all be prize ones. He would fertilize the soil to 
the right extent, and cultivate it with the utmost 
care. He would never say "That is good enough" 
but would keep thinking all the while "The best is 
none too good." The same is true of the blacksmith, 
the plumber, the physician, the merchant, and the 
student. If the pupil in school would always do his 
best and not be satisfied with just enough work to 
secure a passing grade his school life would be 
more pleasant and more profitable. He would have 
the satisfaction of knowing that he was doing his 
best, and would soon find out for himself that good 
work is not up to the mark of best work. If by 
doing his best the farmer should produce as much 
grain on five acres as he would raise on ten acres 
by doing merely good work, it is quite clear that he 
is wasting five acres of ground and is proving that 
the good is the enemy of the best. If the house- 
wife doesn't do her best when she bakes bread she 
is wasting flour besides spoiling the digestion of 



Doing One's Best 83 

her family. If the druggist fails to do his best he 
may put a wrong drug into the prescription and 
thus endanger the health or even the life of the 
patient for whom the prescription is prepared. 

How it Works 

Every man, woman, boy, and girl might well 
adopt as their mottoes for life not only "The 
good is the enemy of the best" but the other, 
"Only the best is good enough." We shall all 
do well to repeat these whenever we begin any 
piece of work whether it is hoeing potatoes, 
writing books, making laws, or painting a house. 
If we always did our best, our work would be 
less slovenly than some of it is now. The clerk 
in the store would not be satisfied with anything 
less than a neat package ; the street-sweeper would 
take pride in the clean street; the farmer would 
smile to look at his straight furrows ; and the school- 
boy would be proud of the neatness of the papers 
he passes in to the teacher. In due time we should 
all be asking the question at the completion of a 
piece of work "Is this my very best?" If it should 
not be our best, we would keep on until we had 
made it so. Thus we should soon gain the habit of 
doing our best at every task, and we should feel that 
we are doing unto others as we would have others 
do unto us. For, if we always do our best when 
we are working for others they will soon catch this 
fine spirit and will do their best when they are 
working for us. 



84 A Civic Reader 

Honest Work 

We can't think well of a boy who doesn't do 
his best in the ball-game and we can't think well of 
the man who doesn't do his best in the life-game. 
Here is a man who engaged a mechanic to do a piece 
of work for him. He was to pay him sixty cents 
an hour. An hour is just sixty minutes and the 
man understood that he was to pay sixty cents for 
sixty minutes' work. But the mechanic idled away 
ten of those minutes. That means that he worked 
only five-sixths of the time. So it fell out that the 
man really paid him seventy-two cents an hour for 
the work that he had agreed to do for sixty cents 
an hour. The man paid him for twelve hours when 
he could have done the task in ten hours had he 
worked all the time. So the piece of work cost the 
man seven dollars and twenty cents instead of six 
dollars. The mechanic did not do his best in the 
life-game and, so, took one dollar and twenty cents 
that really did not belong to him. Had any one 
called him a thief he would have been angry. But 
he did take money that did not belong to him 
whether we call it stealing or not. Possibly the 
writer of the book had in mind some such case as 
this when he wrote "It is immoral for any person 
to do less than his best." 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Have two or three members of the class each tell of one 
time when he did the very best that he could do in completing a 
task. Do you think that doing one's best is a habit? How do 



Doing One's Best 85 

you feel toward other people who do not do their best? If 
possible find some person who you think is doing his best in 
his work. How do people feel towards him? Is it as necessary 
to play your best as well as work your best? Give at least five 
examples of good workmanship about which you have read. 
Where in the story of "Oliver Twist" is a good example of 
doing one's best. Show where in the life of Roosevelt there are 
many evidences that he constantly tried to do his best. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Here is a boy that does not play ball as well as he can 
and who will sometimes walk after the ball and let some runner 
score. How do the other people who are playing feel toward 
him even if he is a good player when he wants to be? A man 
has work but finds every possible excuse to neglect it, then 
wants sympathy when he is in need. How must such people 
be taught to do better? Here is work that you know should 
be done today. Explain why you would do it before enjoying 
the pleasures you had planned. Choose two or three examples 
of where just ordinary people did their best and tell of the 
results. These examples may be from your community or from 
what you have read. Point out two or three examples of new 
work such as buildings or streets where the best work was not 
done. Why are the sewers of Rome in good condition after 
centuries of use? The history of our country is portrayed in 
the dome of our National Capitol. Who did the most of this 
work, how long did it take and how well was the work done? 



X. WANTS AND NEEDS 



IF we should find a strong, healthy boy wanting 
a pair of crutches we would be much surprised 
and might go so far as to think him foolish. 
We know that crutches are made for people who 
are crippled and not for a boy who has two good 
sound legs. But such a boy is not more foolish 
than other people who want things which they do 
not need. Some people spend large sums of money 
for things that they do not need at all. A traveler 
brought from Europe, on one of his trips, several 
pieces of statuary and had them placed in the 
grounds about his house. He did not know that 
such pieces as he brought with him were out of 
place on the lawn and should have been set up in 
the house or in some gallery. To be sure, the neigh- 
bors had many a laugh at his expense and called 
him foolish. He wanted the statues but what he 
needed was a knowledge of art. if he had studied 
art for ten years before he went to Europe he 
would have known what sort of statues to buy 
and what to do with them after he had bought them. 
As it was, he was quite as foolish as the rugged 
boy who wants a pair of crutches. 

The Wealth of Books 

Another man, who had much wealth, thought 
that such a house as he possessed ought to have a 

(86) 



Wants and Needs 87 

library. So, at great expense, he had a large room 
fitted up for this purpose and then employed an 
agent to buy a large collection of books in expensive 
bindings. When the library was complete he used 
it as a show room for he knew nothing of the value 
of books. Shakespeare, Dickens, and Mark Twain 
were mere words to him, for he never read a page 
of any of these authors. Like a child he admired 
the colors of the bindings but of the books them- 
selves he knew nothing. Blank pages would have 
meant quite as much to him. If he had ever read 
a single play of Shakespeare it would have meant 
more to him than all the books he had at that time. 
He did not need a library because he could put it 
to no good use. He could buy what he wanted, 
but he could not buy what he needed. He was one 
of the many people who think that there is nothing 
that money will not buy. In the course of time he 
closed his library and would admit no one; for he 
could no longer endure to have his own ignorance of 
books made known. He did not dare speak of books 
in the presence of visitors for they knew at once that 
he had no knowledge of them. 

The Need of a Knowledge of Art 

One of the school readers tells of the man who 
bought the picture of Jupiter and Io, and thought 
the two letters of the name were figures and called 
the name of the picture "Jupiter and Ten." He 
wanted a picture, but he needed a knowledge of the 
stories of mythology. Some people look bored and 
uncomfortable in an art gallery and this proves 



88 A Civic Reader 

that they lack a knowledge of pictures. The sad 
part of it all is they seem to think that the trouble 
is with the pictures and not with themselves. They 
want it said that they have visited the gallery but 
their need is a very different matter. If all people 
were such as they the art galleries might just as 
well be closed. They are among those "who having 
eyes see not." We are told that the Sistine Ceiling 
at Rome is a wonderful work of art, but these 
people would be bored even there. They would 
probably look at the comic supplement with greater 
interest. 

Foolish Wants 

A deaf man may want an alarm clock; a one- 
armed man may want a violin; a boy may want a 
giraffe ; and a farmer may want a submarine. But 
that does not prove that they need these things. 
On the contrary, it simply proves that they have 
some foolish notions. The farmer needs a tractor 
and would be foolish to spend his money for a sub- 
marine. Many people want more money who really 
need to know how to spend what they have to better 
advantage. The man is foolish who permits himself 
to want an automobile until after he has paid off 
the mortgage on his home. A diamond stud looks 
out of place on a frayed and soiled shirt. It goes 
to show that the man wanted a diamond when he 
really needed a new shirt. The woman may want 
a set of plush furniture or a phonograph, but what 
she needs is enough wholesome food to keep her chil- 
dren in good health. If her teeth need attention 
she does better to spend her money with the dentist 



Wants and Needs 89 

than to spend it with the jeweler. Sometimes a boy 
wants a new hat when it would be better for him 
to give attention to the inside of his head rather 
than the outside. 

Some People Want Harmful Things 

It often happens that people want things that 
would do them harm if they should get them. But, 
in spite of this, they continue to want them. This 
boy wants a package of cigarettes and wants them 
so much that he is willing to deceive his own mother 
to get them. Now, he doesn't need cigarettes and 
the use of them has already done him great harm. 
He is thin, and sallow, his eyes are dull, his 
shoulders are round, and his walk shows bodily 
weakness. In fact his body is full of poison and he 
is not at all the healthy boy he might have been 
if he had not smoked cigarettes. Nor has he the 
moral grip upon himself that he might have had 
if he had kept poison out of his body. He wants 
things and lacks the courage to resist temptation. 
His body is weak, his mind is cloudy, and his moral 
courage is weak simply because he got the things 
that he wanted and not the things that he needed. 
He is a weak chap and not the rugged, healthy, 
alert boy he might have been. 

Patent Medicines 

Some people want patent medicines and use 
them to their harm. Instead of having the doctor 
examine them and tell them what to do they go to 
the drug store and buy things that they know 



90 A Civic Reader 

nothing about and put these into their stomachs. 
The stomach needs food but they give it poison and 
then complain all through life of stomach trouble. 
And they have this sort of trouble, but they brought 
it upon themselves because they did not find out in a 
sensible way what they needed. They did not need 
medicine at all, and certainly not patent medicine. 
They needed good wholesome food, plenty of exer- 
cise, good refreshing sleep, and plenty of fresh air. 
They took poison into their stomachs and then slept 
with their windows closed and, of course, they felt 
out of sorts in the morning. Such people are a 
drag upon themselves as well as others just because 
they do not consult their needs instead of their 
wants. They can not do a full day's work because 
they do not treat their bodies right and they become 
weak. Food, sleep, exercise, and fresh air are the 
things they need to put them in condition to do good 
work. 

The Danger of the Installment Plan 

There are some other people who want things 
so much that they go in debt for them. Just how 
they expect to pay for them they can not tell. So 
they have things in their homes that do not really 
belong to them, but belong to the merchants from 
whom they bought them. These things remind 
them all the while of their debts and they can not 
enjoy them as they would if they really owned them. 
Sometimes, they buy these things on the installment 
plan. They pay so much cash and so much each 
week and they dread the day on which another pay- 



Wants and Needs 91 

ment must be made. They always need that money 
for something else. They want these things, of 
course, but they need to learn that it is better to 
be without things than to go in debt for them. It 
is a comfort to people to know that all the things 
they have are theirs. It does not seem possible 
that a man can be comfortable wearing a suit of 
clothes that really belongs to the tailor or thart a 
woman can be comfortable wearing a hat that be- 
longs to the milliner. Besides, those people who 
pay cash for their things get them cheaper than 
those who go in debt for them. 

Lists of Wants and Needs 

If we should all make a list of the things we 
want and another list of the things we actually need 
the list of our wants would probably be much 
longer than our list of needs. Thei) if we should 
strike out from our list of wants the items that we 
can do without we should find the list much shorter. 
Children often make up lists for Santa Claus that 
would fill his sleigh to overflowing. These lists 
include many things which they do not need and omit 
many things which they do need. So, when we ar- 
range our list of wants we can soon tell whether 
we are still children or whether we are growing up 
and have learned the difference between mere wants 
and real needs. People who think do not confuse 
wants and needs. When they find themselves want- 
ing a thing they ask themselves the question, "Do 
I really need that?" Or another question, "Can I 
afford that?" Or still another, "Would that be good 



92 A Civic Reader 

for me?" If they must say "No" to these ques- 
tions they turn away and try to want only the 
things they need. 

Workers and Loafers 

In our list of wants we should probably include 
a big bank account, a touring car, rich furniture, 
large houses, spacious grounds, and nothing at all 
to do. A life of idleness would make any man or 
woman flabby and weak. If all these luxuries should 
take from people the chance to work they would be 
better off without them. People who do not work at 
something useful are not good citizens. They may 
be rich but they are not helpers. We want idle- 
ness but we need work; for work will give us good 
red blood, and muscles, and strength while idleness 
would make us like putty. A billiard cue may be 
very well after a day's work but as a habit it is a 
poor thing; a hoe-handle is much better. Resting 
and loafing are two very different things. A worker 
always wins our respect but we can not respect a 
loafer, no matter how rich he may be, for a loafer 
is neither useful nor ornamental. 

The Fruits of Labor 

We may want the comic supplement, but we 
need to know the art works of Corot, Rosa Bonheur, 
Titian, Raphael, and Angelo. We may want books 
that are shilly-shally but we need such books as will 
give us big and sound thoughts and will cause us 
to grow big inside. We may want gaudy colors in 



Wants and Needs 93 

clothing, in house-furnishings, and in pictures, but 
we need the desire for modest colors that we may 
never appear loud or cheap. We may w r ant to seem 
to be more than we really are but we need to be 
so genuine and sincere that people may know that 
we are even more than we seem to be. We may 
want glitter, and tinsel, and show, but we need to 
be honest with ourselves and others and not try to 
deceive people by appearances. We may want 
riches, but we need to be so true to the things which 
are right and beautiful that people will come to us 
even in poverty. We need to be big enough, and 
true enough, and right enough in all we do to make 
our work, whatever it may be, seem great. And it 
w r ill seem great just because we are doing it Only 
so shall we be able to make our work smile. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

How are the wants of any one determined? When does 
any one really need anything? Is the fact that you can get 
along without it ever a good reason for not having any certain 
thing? Why do people when they grow older want fewer things 
which they cannot possess? Is it possible for one person to 
need several things which are useless to some other person of 
the same age and sex? Should a person's needs be in advance 
of his wants or his wants in advance of his needs? Show how 
a boy or girl may be pleased with himself or herself without 
being vain. When should you not ask, Can I afford that? 
Show why many people are willing to go into debt for things 
they really do not need. Who has the greatest wants of any 
group of people you know? What group of people has the 
greatest needs? How nearly are your wants and needs the 
same? 



94 A Civic Reader 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Cite several examples of a person of whom you have read 
who desired what he should not have had. Show by arguments 
that one's wealth cannot be measured by dollars. Make a list 
of at least five common wants of children of things which they 
should not have. Every boy and girl should have at least ten 
things which they keep wanting and wishing for, for years. 
Make your list and submit it to the teacher for criticism. Point 
out 'many advantages of paying cash for everything you buy. 
State several exceptions. During the Revolutionary War, Wash- 
ington needed money. How did he get it? At the present time 
many people of the United States are demanding freedom of 
speech. How may they get it? 



XI. OUR DEBTS 



IF people would only all pay as they go it would 
be better for them and better for all those with 
whom they deal. If a man can not pay cash 
for what he buys he would do better to wait until 
he can pay cash. If he pays cash he can buy things 
at the lowest price, but if he asks for credit the 
merchant charges him the highest price. Besides, 
if people bought only what they can pay for in 
cash they would not be thrown into a panic by 
bills which they have no money to meet. The credit 
system is bad for the seller. By the credit system 
the seller expects to lose some accounts and so 
makes up the loss by charging more for his goods. 
That makes it bad for all those who do pay cash. 
Some merchants have become bankrupt because 
they gave credit too liberally. Their books showed 
quite enough due them to pay up, but not being 
able to collect what was due them they had to close 
out their business. If their customers had all paid 
cash they could have done the same, and so would 
have been saved from bankruptcy. Then, again, 
the credit system makes it necessary for the 
merchant to employ a bookkeeper and that, of 
course, adds to the expense. This added expense 
must be met by those who buy his goods and that 
means that they must pay higher prices because of 

(95) 



96 A Civic Reader 

the bookkeeper. These are some of the reasons why- 
it would be better for everybody concerned if we 
all paid cash for what we buy. 

Debts Not Valued in Money 

But we have many other debts besides the ones 
for food, clothing, and other material comforts. 
We are in debt to Mr. Edison for his kindly service 
in giving us the electric light. It would be hard 
with us to go back to the kerosene lamp or the 
tallow candle and harder yet to go back to the 
grease lamp that our ancestors used. If we should 
be obliged to go back to any of these for a single 
week we would realize how great is our debt for 
the electric light. It enables us to read or work in 
comfort. It makes our homes bright and cheery, 
and drives out gloom from our lives. We get the 
feeling that we have paid the debt when we have 
paid our electric light bills. But we have not. We 
have simply paid for the work that people do in 
arranging the service for us. We have not paid 
for this gift. We are in debt to Mr. Edison for 
that, and this is one of our many debts which can 
not be paid in money. This is much the same as 
the debt we owe our mothers for all they have done 
for us. We can not pay them with money for such 
services can not be estimated in terms of money. 
There is no price-tag attached to kindness. When 
we were ill the mother sat there by the bed all 
through the hours of the night giving the medicine 
and looking to our comfort. We may pay the nurse 
with money but not the mother. Just so we may 



Our Debts 97 

pay the electric light company with money but 
not Mr. Edison. We must pay him as well as our 
mothers with gratitude and appreciation. 

Other Unpaid Debts 

Some one gave us the alphabet and we are in 
debt for that. If this alphabet should be taken 
away from us our affairs would tumble to ruin. 
We might write by means of pictures and drawings 
as the cave men did but that would be a crude way 
as compared with our use of the alphabet. Before 
we had the alphabet there was no reading and no 
writing such as we use and we feel sorry for the 
people who had no alphabet. It would not be easy to 
tell just how they put in their time, for they had 
twenty-four hours a day the same as we. We can 
scarcely appreciate what a blessing the alphabet is 
to us until we have put ourselves in the place of 
those people who had no alphabet. We may well 
wonder about their names since they had no letters 
with which to spell them. It would disturb us 
greatly to have our names taken from us. The more 
we think of these things the more clearly we can 
see the importance of the alphabet. The figures we 
use are hardly less important for we all use them 
in many ways. Every waking hour of the day we 
find use for them and this shows how important they 
are. Whoever gave them to us did us a good turn 
but we use them as freely as if we had invented 
them ourselves. We owe somebody a great debt 
and the least we can do is to feel grateful whenever 
we use them. 

7 



98 A Civic Reader 

The Book of Job 

Some one wrote the Book of Job and gave it to 
us free of charge. Possibly, some of us have not 
read this book but that does not make our debt to the 
author any less. Some friend might give us a gold 
watch. We may refuse to wear it but, even so, we 
are still in debt to that friend. Our refusing to 
wear it only proves our lack of gratitude and ap- 
preciation. We are still in debt to the giver for 
the gift. So, with the Book of Job. If we fail to 
read it the debt still remains. If we read it we 
thus show our appreciation and so pay a part of 
the debt. But we still owe our gratitude. If we 
do not read it we pay neither part of the debt. 
Some writers have received a dollar a word for 
their work but what they wrote was not equal to 
this book of Job. So, if we read what they wrote 
but do not read the Book of Job we prove that we 
do not care for that which is excellent but prefer 
that which is less than excellent. In such case our 
debt seems not to disturb us but we go through life 
making no effort to pay it. If we say that we do 
not care for the Book of Job, we do not make the 
book any less valuable. We simply confess that we 
do not care for great books and have no wish to pay 
our debt. We are merely refusing to wear the 
watch which our friend gave us and thus try to 
make ourselves believe that we are not in debt to 
this friend. But the debt is there whether we pay 
it or not, 



Our Debts 99 

How We May Pay Our Debts 

If some one should give us an apple we would 
thank him and then proceed to eat it. Now, Shake- 
speare has given us some plays that far exceed the 
finest apples in real value. We may not read these 
plays just as we might refuse to eat the apple. But 
we can not escape our debt in either case. It is said 
that people have to learn to eat olives. There are 
many who have done so and now eat them with 
great relish. We may have to learn to read Shake- 
speare's plays and there are many who have done so. 
These people tell us they are excellent. Now we 
must either doubt what these people say or we must 
admit that we would profit by learning to read these 
plays for ourselves. Each one of us must decide 
this matter for himself. We may ignore these plays 
or we may learn to read them. If we ignore them 
we simply refuse to pay our debts. If we read them 
we make acknowledgment of our debt and are will- 
ing to pay to the best of our ability. The same may 
be said of the many good things which have been 
given to us by Dickens, Hawthorne, Tennyson, 
Browning, George Eliot, the Cary Sisters, and Mil- 
ton. I may not care for Keats, or Burns, or Shelley, 
but there are a thousand good people who do like 
them and it would be a pity if I should claim that I 
am right and they are all wrong. It would be more 
to my credit to learn to like them and so try to 
pay my debt to them. 



100 A Civic Reader 

People To Whom We Are in Debt 

We are all in debt to every public official who 
does his work faithfully and well, for he is looking 
after our interests. We are in debt to the law- 
maker who helps enact wise laws. We are in debt 
to every man or woman w T ho writes a good book 
for us. We are in debt to the artist, the musician, 
and the inventor, for all these help to make life 
more agreeable for us. We have about us many 
things to enjoy that we did not produce. We are 
in debt to somebody for each one of these. We do 
not pay the full debt when we buy a ticket for a 
trip across the ocean. We are in debt to somebody 
for the good ship that takes us across in such com- 
fort. The same is true of the automobile and the 
excellent road over which it travels. We did not 
produce either of them but they are ours to enjoy. 
We may not be able to thank those who did pro- 
duce them, in person, but we can have a feeling of 
gratitude and appreciation. When we come to feel 
that we owe a debt to some one for each of the 
comforts we have we shall quickly realize that our 
debts are many. We can not pay them all in full, 
of course, but we shall find much joy in paying all 
we can. Every one feels better after reading a 
good book, or looking for a time at a beautiful 
picture, or listening to high-class music or an elo- 
quent speech, and this better feeling is part of the 
payment we make on our debts. 



Our Debts 101 

Putting Others in Debt to Us 

There is still another side to this subject of 
debts that is well worth thinking of. We are all 
in debt to others for food, clothing, shelter, safety, 
books, pictures, and music, and one way of paying 
these debts is to make people in debt to us. We are 
all glad to have people owe us money but we may 
have them in debt to us in many other ways. We are 
all in debt to the farmer for our food and it is quite 
possible to have him in debt to us. We are in debt 
to the entire community in which we live for many 
things which it has provided for our comfort. 
Public officials provide roads and streets for us, 
the policeman looks to our safety, and the tax- 
payer provides the money. It is easy to see how we 
may pay some of our debt to the community by 
putting it in debt to us. Thomas A. Edison was 
born and reared in Milan, Ohio, and was in debt to 
the people of that village for food, shelter, safety, 
and education. Then he went away and made a 
name for himself by doing a great work for hu- 
manity. In doing this he has brought high honor 
to the little town in which he lived. So, it has come 
to pass that Milan now feels that it is in debt to him. 
Thus we see that he has paid his debt to Milan by 
putting this village in his debt. What is true in the 
case of Edison is true of many others and it is 
quite possible for all boys and girls to pay their 
debts to their communities in some such way. 



102 A Civic Reader 

How This May be Done 

The boy who invents a machine which will make 
life more agreeable will bring honor to his home 
community and cause all the people to be proud 
of him. The girl may design a house which will be 
more convenient and comfortable than the ones we 
now have, and thousands of people will sing her 
praises. When she has gained honor for herself 
the people of her home community will all be glad 
to share in the glory that she has won. Another 
girl may write a masterpiece of music that will, 
in part, at least, cancel her debt; or she may write 
a book that will put thousands of people in debt to 
her. The boy may write a law that will lift burdens 
from a host of people and thus pay some of his 
debts. It is worth while to plan how we may put 
people in debt to us. The field is open before us 
and we can make our own choices. People are quite 
willing to be in debt to us if only we do something 
that will benefit them. They are looking for better 
things all the while from a lead-pencil to a steam 
engine and when we give them these better things 
they will feel themselves in debt to us. They will 
welcome better books, better roads, better music, 
better schools, and better government and will feel 
themselves in debt to us if we furnish them. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Show why we cannot practice paying as we go. How 
may we pay our debt to Washington, to Jackson, to Lincoln, 
to Mrs. Willard, to Longfellow, to Hawthorne, to Burbank, to 



Our Debts 103 

Edison, and to Roosevelt. The fitting answer for each of these 
names should be different. When you do something for some 
one does that person ordinarily appreciate it? Mention one 
example of where you have done something to put some one 
in debt to you but not in a financial way. Show how it is 
possible for a doctor, a merchant, a teacher, a lawyer, a farmer, 
a laborer, a minister or an inventor to make the country in debt 
to him. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Try to describe the people who do not pay their money 
debts. Make a list of five of the largest debts you have which 
cannot be paid with money. Show many reasons why almost 
all the people are more or less in debt in the way of money. 
I can name the person and the amount of nearly every experi- 
ence in my life where some one cheated me. Why can you do 
the same? Show the differences between honest and dishonest 
debts. Explain as best you can France's great debt to the 
United States. 



XIL BOY AND GIRL SCOUTS 



UNTIL quite recently we have been thinking 
that all Scouts were boys but the movement 
is so wholesome and good that the girls 
have been included and they now take the same 
pledge as the boys. However, it will be more con- 
venient to use but one pronoun in writing of Scout 
work and we shall use the masculine, but with the 
understanding that what is said of the boys applies 
quite as well to the girls. All parents are glad to 
have their boys and girls become Scouts because 
they know that the Scout program will help them 
to become just such boys and girls as these par- 
ents would have them be. No father is ever 
ashamed to say that his boy is a Scout, for every- 
body knows that a Scout can not be a cheat, a sneak, 
or a mollycoddle. If he is true to his oath he can 
not be any of these, but will be clean, manly, 
honest, and upright. This is the oath that every 
boy must take when he becomes a Scout : "On my 
honor I will do my best 

1. To do my duty to God and my country 
and obey the Scout law; 

2. To help other people at all times ; 

3. To keep myself physically strong, mentally 
awake, and morally straight." 

(104) 



Boy and Girl Scouts 105 

In addition to this oath there are twelve prin- 
ciples or laws that a Scout feels himself in honor 
bound to obey and practice. 

Be Trustworthy 

A Scout is trustworthy. If you hand him a 
package to deliver you may be certain that it will 
be delivered at the right place at the right time, 
if such a thing is humanly possible. He will not 
stop on the way to play a game of ball nor will he 
engage another boy to take the package for him. 
He has made a promise to deliver that package and 
that promise is sacred. There may be many things 
along the way that he would be glad to look at 
but he will not be turned aside for he knows that 
the sender of the package is trusting him and he 
will not betray the trust. When he goes on an 
errand he does not loiter or dawdle along the way 
but considers the errand the main thing in life for 
the time being and does not stop until that errand 
has been done. 

Be Loyal 

A Scout is loyal. If his mother tells him some- 
thing in confidence he would bite through his tongue 
rather than tell it to his best friend. He is so loyal 
to his home that he would scorn to do anything that 
would cause any member of that heme to blush. 
The teacher knows that she may count on him for 
his best at all times for he is loyal to the school 
and would not do anything that would bring dis- 



106 A Civic Reader 

credit upon it. He is loyal to his country. He is 
loyal to his flag and would never do anything that 
would dim the honor of that flag. 

Be Helpful 

A Scout is helpful To be helpful at all times 
is a part of his oath ; indeed, it is the very heart of 
that oath. Having made a pledge to be helpful 
his eyes are quick to see where help is needed. He 
will turn aside from his play to go to the aid of a 
lame dog or a feeble old man or woman. He gladly 
gives up his seat in the car to an old person. He 
runs to rescue a child from danger or help a lady 
with her packages. He helps the blind and the lame 
across the street. If a horse falls in the street he 
is one of the first to unfasten the harness that the 
animal may get to his feet. It is a part of his creed 
to do at least one helpful thing each day and he 
is always on the watch for opportunities to help. 
He helps his mother, his teacher, his neighbors, and 
his playmates and nothing gives him greater pleas- 
ure than to lend a hand. 

Be Friendly 

A Scout is friendly. He is never surly and 
never pouts. It puts people in good humor to 
have him near. He is like sunshine and never like 
a cloud. He has a cheery greeting for everybody 
and makes people feel that life is a thing of joy. 
He sings or whistles his way into the hearts of 
people and makes them glad to be alive. He is 



Boy and Girl Scouts 107 

never disagreeable either at home, or at school, or 
on the street but is always bright and cheerful. He 
makes friends easily because he is friendly to every 
person or animal that he meets. 

Be Courteous 

A Scout is courteous. Here he shows himself 
to be truly fine. He is as polite to the poor as he 
is to the rich. He tips his cap to the washer- woman 
as if she were a princess. He has too much respect 
for himself to show disrespect to others. When he 
sees a girl who is left out of the games because of 
her poverty he takes special pains to see to it that 
she has a good time and is quite happy when her 
smile shows that she has forgotten about her shabby 
dress. He never will take pay for any act of kind- 
ness. That would make it seem cheap to him and 
would take away the joy. He is courteous because 
he has a kindly feeling toward all people and wishes 
to make them happy. 

Be Kind 

A Scout is kind. A stray kitten finds in him 
a real friend. He takes it home with him, gives it 
milk, and provides it a nice warm place of refuge. 
Somehow, he is able to put himself in its place, and 
wonders how it would seem to have no friends, no 
food, and no home. So he comes to have a kindly 
feeling for all living things and, especially, for 
the unfortunate ones. The dog that has been pelted 
jvith stones receives from him only kindly treat- 



108 A Civic Reader 

ment, and the bird that has been hurt becomes his 
special care. And he is quite as kind to people as 
he is to animals. He would grieve to hurt the feel- 
ings of any person and would feel that he had not 
been true to the Scout pledge. 

Be Obedient 

A Scout is obedient. Being a true soldier he 
obeys orders, promptly and gladly. He never 
grumbles when an order is given but steps forth 
on the instant to do the task that has been laid 
upon him. If his father asks him to do an errand 
he does not make excuses nor does he ask to have 
the matter postponed but starts at once. He finds 
it much easier to put aside his own affairs than to 
disobey an order or refuse a request. Prompt 
obedience is a part of himself and soon becomes as 
natural to him as his breathing. If he did not obey 
orders promptly he would not be a good Scout. 

Be Cheerful 

A Scout is cheerful. He may be very much 
disappointed that he can not go with his mates to 
the picnic but he does not sulk or pout. He waves 
the boys on their way with a hearty good-bye and 
then sets about making plans to have more fun, if 
possible, than he would have had at the picnic. He 
enjoys picnics as much as any other boy but he can 
better go without picnics than show himself other 
than a true Scout. When his work is hard he 
whistles to make himself forget how hard it is. 



Boy and Girl Scouts 109 

Or he pretends that he is playing a game and so has 
good fun at his tasks. He says that the whistling 
makes the work seem easier and advises his father 
and his companions to try it. 

Be Thrifty 

The Scout is thrifty. He always spends less 
than he earns and it would shame him not have 
money in his pocket that he himself has earned. It 
would shame him, too, to be asking his parents for 
spending money. He finds many ways of earning 
money and always does his work so well that people 
are glad to employ him. They know that he has a 
bank account and they are always pleased to help 
a boy who is thrifty. If he spent all his earnings 
foolishly they would lose interest in him and would 
employ some one else. He knows that the money he 
is saving will help him to do things in the future 
that he could not do if he had no ready money. So 
he works and saves and has a good time doing 
both. He works for pay but will not accept tips 
for his acts of kindness. 

Be Brave 

A Scout is brave. He is not soft and flabby 
either in body or in spirit. In doing a deed of kind- 
ness he will endure cold, hunger, and fatigue. He 
does not shrink from hardship when he finds a 
chance to be helpful. He will rush into a burning 
house to rescue a baby; he will swim a stream to 
save a dog from cruelty; and he will risk his life 



110 A Civic Reader 

to stop a run-away horse. He will stand on guard 
for hours to help save life or property. And when 
the task is done he goes quietly on his way and 
never boasts of what he has done. He does not 
think of himself as a hero but finds his joy in 
having done something useful. 

Be Clean 

A Scout is clean. A bath is as much a part of 
his daily program as his breakfast. He looks after 
his hands, his teeth, his clothing, and his shoes with 
the greatest care. He considers a slovenly appear- 
ance as a form of bad manners. He is clean in his 
speech, in his thoughts, and in his habits. He be- 
lieves in clean sport and can not be induced to play 
with any team that does not practice this kind of 
playing. So he comes to associate only with com- 
panions who are clean in all respects. He will 
quietly withdraw from any group that uses coarse 
or obscene language for he respects himself and his 
pledge too much to be found in such company. 

Be Reverent 

A Scout is reverent. He is a wholesome rollick- 
ing chap but there are times and places which call to 
him for silence, and he obeys the call. There are 
things that he holds sacred and he can not be loud 
or boisterous in their presence. He is quiet in the 
church, in the presence of sorrow, in the presence 
of aged people, and when he looks into the starry 
sky. To him space is so big that he has a feeling 



Boy and Girl Scouts 111 

of reverence as he tries to measure it. He stands 
uncovered before a picture of Lincoln, or Wash- 
ington, or the Madonna. In space, in the sky, in 
the ocean, in the mountain, in the landscape, in the 
sunrise, and in the tree in full bloom he finds om- 
nipotence and so is reverent in their presence. 

The Scout's Work 

The Scout working and living according to his 
oath and these twelve rules can be neither petty, nor 
selfish, nor idle. Indeed he is busy all day long at 
his lesson, at his work, and in his many acts of kind- 
ness and helpfulness. To tell all the things that boy 
and girl Scouts do in the course of a single week 
in our country alone would require a very large 
book. Every Scout takes a pledge to do a good 
turn each day and that means at least seven such 
good turns every week. Now if we multiply this 
number by the thousands of Scouts in our land we 
can see at once how great the number of such kind 
acts must be. They read to people who are sick; 
they carry flowers and magazines to hospitals ; they 
act as messengers at conventions ; they do work as 
guides at reunions of soldiers and sailors ; they do 
police duty in times of fires, or floods, or strikes, 
and they go in search of lost people or animals. 
Besides all these they deliver Christmas baskets, 
act as ushers in churches, sell War Savings Stamps, 
and help in clean-up campaigns. Nor must they 
be told or asked to do these things. They see for 
themselves and are quick to act. It is a real badge 
of honor to be a Scout. 



112 A Civic Reader 

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Give several reasons why some boys and girls do not 
care to become Scouts. Why are many communities without 
these scout organizations? How may any community have 
such an organization? Have some boy or girl scout tell the 
advantages of scout life. A boy brought me a package which 
he was paid to deliver. I offered him a dime. He said "I can- 
not take it, I am a scout." Discuss this situation. Why are 
fathers and mothers proud when their children become scouts? 
Why is it sometimes hard for a boy to live up to the oath ^of 
the scout? Do boys work better when a group is doing the 
same thing? Why or why not? To what extent do boys and 
girls care for appreciation of their work? Do you understand 
that scouts do not care for appreciation? Suggest several 
advantages of having scout organizations in your community. 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Find out if possible several examples of where boy or 
girl scouts have been of real service. Have some boy report in 
a complete w r ay all about the Boy Scout organization. Assign 
the same duty to some girl concerning Girl Scout organiza- 
tions. Show by reports from reading and from having the 
students talk to older people the advantages of the appr^ 
system for learning a trade which was formerly followed in 
many places. What disadvantages may be offered to the ap- 
prentice system? Find out if possible the attitude of business 
men and women toward this scout movement 



XIII. WASTE AND SAVING 



/■np^HE World War taught us many useful les- 
;. sons one of which was not to be wasteful. 
One of the slogans of war-time was "Starve 
the garbage-can" and that slogan was very timely 
for we had the habit of throwing into the garbage- 
can much food that could have been used. While the 
war was on and food was scarce we did well in the 
way of saving but we are now in danger of going 
back to the old ways. The cook is in such a hurry 
that she finds it easy to throw into the garbage-can 
much that she could use for the next meal if she 
would take the time to do it. The farmer is so 
rushed with work that he often leaves grain stand- 
ing out in the field all winter or leaves some of his 
fruit to rot under the trees. Aside from the money 
that he thus loses he deprives the market of just so 
much food and the prices are made higher. Thus 
it will be seen that the wastefulness of one per- 
son affects many others. We have all heard many 
times of the high cost of living and many of us 
have felt the pinch of it but, even yet, we have 
much to learn on the subject of waste. If each one 
of us would consider our own daily program care- 
fully we would find many things which would prove 
that we are all more or less wasteful. Every per- 
son can find ways of saving that he does not now 

8 (113) 



114 A Civic Reader 

practice if he will examine his own habits with 
microscopic care. He has only to examine the gar- 
bage-can, the waste-basket, and the items of his 
expense account to be made conscious of the fact that 
he is a waster. 

Saving Bread 

An ounce seems a very small portion of any 
food product and so it is when considered alone, but 
when it is combined with other ounces it helps to 
make pounds, tons, and car-loads. An ounce of 
bread seems too small to bother with, but if the 
ounce of bread that is thrown away each day in 
every home of our country were saved the amount 
of bread thus saved would feed many people. Each 
pupil can easily figure this for himself. There are 
twenty million homes in the United States. If each 
home saved an ounce of bread each day the aggre- 
gate would be twenty million ounces a day. In a 
year of 365 days the amount would be 7300 million 
ounces. Dividing this by 16 we get more than 456 
million pounds and since a large loaf weighs a 
pound we have 456 million loaves. Let us say that 
a loaf is ten inches long. Then multiplying the 
number of loaves by ten and dividing by twelve we 
get more than 380 million feet and dividing this by 
5280 to reduce it to miles we get 7195 miles. Now 
we see that a saving of one ounce of bread each 
day in our country alone would make a total saving 
for a year of enough, loaves to extend 7195 miles 
if these loaves were arranged in a line. Or, to 
put it in another way, if each home wastes an ounce 



Waste and Saving 115 

of bread each day together they waste in a year 
enough loaves to reach from New York to San 
Francisco and back again with enough left over to 
reach half way across the Atlantic. 

Saving Potatoes 

One potato does not seem to amount to much 
but if we compute the saving of potatoes as we 
have done bread we get a total that will make us 
think twice before we throw a potato away. If 
each family in the land saves one potato each day 
the saving for a year would be 365 times twenty 
million potatoes or 7300 million potatoes. Counting 
250 potatoes in a bushel we get 29,200,000 bushels. 
Now if we could put a thousand bushels into a car 
it would take 29,200 cars. The length of a car is 
about forty feet. So multiplying the number of 
cars by forty and dividing by 5280 to reduce to 
miles we find that it would require a train of cars 
221 miles long. This means at least five hundred 
long freight trains to haul the potatoes that 
would thus be saved. It will be easy to find 
on the map two cities that are about 221 miles 
apart and we can readily imagine our trains 
of potatoes extending from one of these cities 
to the other. Now, one potato is wasted each 
day in every home in the simple matter of paring. 
So we see 29,200 car-loads of potatoes going into 
garbage-cans each year in the form of potato- 
parings. If the cooks of our country would only 
think of this waste when they are paring potatoes 
they could save for our people these twenty-nine 



116 A Civic Reader 

million bushels instead of giving them to the gar- 
bage-cans. That would mean a peck of potatoes 
for each man, woman, and child in our country and 
this peck of potatoes is surely worth saving. 

Saving Meat 

In the same way we may estimate the saving 
that is possible in the meat supply. We are not 
thinking now of our eating less meat. We are 
thinking about using all the meat that we buy. 
The cook thinks it is not worth while to put aside 
for other uses the ounce of pork that remains from 
the meal. And yet that ounce of pork is quite an 
important matter if we estimate it as we have done 
in the case of other items. This gives us another 
interesting exercise in arithmetic. If each family 
saves an ounce of pork each day, then in a year 
the saving would be 456 million pounds. Now let 
us assume that a hog affords 228 pounds of meat. 
This gives us a saving of two million hogs. Now, 
again, let us imagine we see all these hogs marching 
along in single file each one occupying four feet 
of space. Multiplying two million by four and 
dividing by 5280 we find our procession extending 
over more than fifteen hundred miles, all because 
the cooks did not throw that ounce of pork into the 
garbage-can. If this procession of hogs were to 
start from New York and go through Philadelphia, 
Pittsburgh and Cleveland, when the first one 
reached Chicago there would still be thousands of 
them in New York that had not started on their 
journey. And these fifteen hundred miles of hogs 



Waste and Saving 117 

would give food to many people and every one 
would prefer that people should have this food 
rather than see it thrown away. 

Saving Butter 

Just a little careful thinking will convince any 
person that only the most economical family does 
not waste at least an ounce of butter each day. 
Butter is used at each of the three meals and a very 
small amount left on the plate of each member of 
the family at each of these three meals would aggre- 
gate an ounce. It seems well within the limits of 
truth, then, to say we waste at least an ounce of 
butter each day, on the average, in every home in 
our country. Now if we saved this ounce instead 
of wasting it at the end of a year we should have 
a noble record to our credit. The twenty million 
homes would save twenty million ounces a day or 
a million and a quarter pounds. In a year the 
amount would be 456 million pounds or 228,000 
tons. Now a good team can draw a load of two tons 
on a good road and that would give us 114,000 teams 
to draw the butter we would save in a year. Al- 
lowing thirty feet of space for each team we should 
have a line of teams extending over 647 miles. It 
seems a great waste to see a line of teams 647 
miles long each drawing 4000 pounds of butter 
backing up in the rear of our American homes that 
the cooks may empty their loads into twenty million 
kitchen sinks and wash them down into the sewers. 
And all this happens while thousands of people are 
hungry for the butter they can not afford. 



118 A Civic Reader 

Saving Corn 

There are many farmers who still employ 
wasteful methods in the manner of feeding their 
stock. It is a common experience to see them 
scatter corn about in the mud when they go out to 
feed their hogs, or cattle. Some of this grain is 
tramped down into the mud and wasted. An ear 
of corn seems a slight affair but a million ears 
would make an enormous pile. It is very conserv- 
ative to say that a million farmers waste each one 
ear of corn a day. Counting one hundred ears to the 
bushel the waste amounts to ten thousand bushels 
a day or 3,650,000 each year. Allowing five hun- 
dred bushels as a car-load we have 7300 car-loads 
of corn wasted. These cars would constitute a train 
more than fifty-five miles long. The boy who is still 
further curious about these 7300 car-loads of corn 
can soon figure out the number of corn-cakes that 
could be produced from all this corn and the number 
of people who would be glad to get this food. But, 
because the farmer does not save all that he pro- 
duces, all these beautiful corn-cakes are tramped 
into the mud by impolite hogs and cattle. If we 
could only have the butter that is wasted and the 
corn-cakes that are wasted thousands of breakfast 
tables would be scenes of joy and laughter. Many 
farmers are becoming conscious of the wastefulness 
of this way of feeding stock and are providing 
better ways. Thus they are saving what they once 
wasted and are providing breakfast tables with 
delicious corn cakes. 



Waste and Saving 119 

Various Forms of Waste 

But this is quite enough to show how many 
opportunities we have to save even in the matter of 
food. There are other ways of saving. If we should 
each set down in a note-book every penny that we 
spend naming the item and then at the end of the 
year figure up the amount we have spent for un- 
necessary things we would be greatly surprised 
both at the amount and the items. Then the next 
year we might decline to spend money for the things 
which we have come to regard as unnecessary and 
thus save the amount we had before wasted. If we 
should deposit this amount in the bank it would be a 
real savings account for it would represent what we 
had saved by doing without unnecessary things. We 
could add to this savings account from time to time 
by turning to profit the things that are usually 
thrown away. Waste paper is one of these. In a 
certain centralized school the pupils brought in 
waste paper from all the homes of the township. 
When this paper had been baled and sold it was 
found that the proceeds were sufficient to purchase 
a phonograph for the school. Another school bought 
beautiful pictures for the school with the proceeds 
of the sale of discarded rubbers which the pupils 
collected. Now, these old rubbers and the waste 
paper would have been burned or buried if the 
pupils had not turned them into money. Hence, 
what they received for them was clear gain and 
represented a real saving. 



120 A Civic Reader 

Saving Paper 

At the very least there must be one newspaper 
read, on the average, by every home in our country. 
In twenty million homes, then, there are twenty 
million papers. These could surely be sold at the 
rate of twenty for a penny or a million pennies a 
day or ten thousand dollars. In a year the sum 
would be more than three and a half million dollars. 
This vast sum would build a great college or a dozen 
libraries, and the country would be all the better 
because of them. Or, this waste paper money might 
be used in building roads, and at the very least 
we could build one hundred miles of road each year 
with this money. An enterprising boy had a very 
comfortable income from the sale of old bottles. He 
gathered them in back yards whose owners were 
glad to have them taken away. He washed and 
sorted them and then found a ready sale for them. 
We all know the rag-man who calls out "Rags and 
old iron." There are several millionaires in this 
country today who laid the foundation for their 
fortunes in just this way. If we gain the habit of 
saving waste paper, old rubbers, and old bottles we 
shall be all the more likely to save food in all its 
forms and shall be doing our part to make our coun- 
try thrifty and prosperous. 

Waste Motion 

There is still another kind of waste that we 
all need to think about every waking hour of the 
day and that is waste motion or effort. We have 



Waste and Saving 121 

said many times and often heard other people say 
"I forgot" and this is the cause of much of this 
lost motion. After he has walked a block the man 
recalls the book he must return to the library and 
goes back for it. This is waste motion. Had he 
not forgotten the book he would have saved the 
walk of two blocks and the ten minutes. Both the 
time and the effort are altogether wasted and no 
one can ever make up for this kind of waste. If 
a man walks a block or even ten feet and doesn't 
have something to show for it he must set it down 
as waste motion. The teacher may excuse the boy 
for tardiness because he forgot his book but the 
waste motion is something over which the teacher 
has no control. That is a mark against the boy, 
nor can he be rid of it. He may never forget his 
book again but he did forget it once and the fact 
will always stand against him. A man forgot an 
appointment and twenty other men wasted the time 
and effort they spent coming to the meeting place 
to see him. If the man who forgot the book and 
thus wasted ten minutes and the walking of two 
blocks is a fair example we can soon figure out the 
amount of time and effort that all the people of our 
country waste each day because they forget. To 
say "I forgot" may explain the waste but it certainly 
does not excuse it. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Allow each member of the class to express an opinion on 
what waste and saving really is. Show the difference between 



122 A Civic Reader 

economy and saving. Are a majority of the people of your 
community wasteful? Show that a saving must have value 
equal in value to the time spent before it is a real saving. 
Many people form habits of saving everything until they 
become misers. Discuss this type of saving. Discuss the value 
of savings banks for boys and girls. Money and food are not 
the only things which may be saved. Give examples and illus- 
trations of saving in work, of saving time, of saving the efforts 
of other people, and the saving of health. Is it as essential 
that we save in time of plenty as in time of need? Discuss 
"A dollar saved is a dollar earned." 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The class has a fine opportunity to study the different 
kinds of waste in the community. Buildings in need of paint 
and repair, machinery standing idle in the weather and fertile 
plots of ground lying fallow which should be cultivated are 
a few of the many wastes common to almost any neighbor- 
hood. The teacher may require reports of observations by 
different members of the class as to conditions in the com- 
munity. A plentiful crop of any kind results many times in 
waste. A discussion of better methods of marketing such 
crops would be worth while. Many people keep worthless 
things for years. By so doing they waste time, effort and 
space and are not the saving people but wasteful. Discuss 
the necessity of being intelligent in the practice of saving. A 
certain man for years saved every piece of cord possible and 
when he became old, had a large ball worth perhaps one 
dollar. Was this waste or saving? 



XIV. LOYALTY 



LOYALTY means more than merely marching 
in the parade, carrying the flag, or beat- 
ing the drum. These things may be a part 
of it but they are not all of it by any means. There 
is a sort of loyalty that is neither showy nor noisy. 
There have been men and women who were burned 
at the stake rather than tell a lie as to what they 
believed. They would not lie even to save their 
own lives. That is what we may call loyalty to a 
principle or a belief. In a prison in The Hague, 
in Holland, may be seen many instruments of tor- 
ture that were used in trying to make people re* 
nounce their faith. They made them walk barefoot 
on red-hot iron plates ; they grappled the flesh from 
their bodies with red-hot pincers; and they built 
bon-fires about them and burned them slowly to 
death. But they would not lie. They believed cer- 
tain things and would not say that they did not 
believe. There is a well-known expression "faithful 
unto death." These people were just that, and we 
call it loyalty. It took more courage to endure such 
tortures than it does to march in the parade. The 
soldier suffers cold, hunger, loss of sleep, hard 
marching, hard fighting and awful wounds but he 
endures all these with a smile because he believes 
that the cause is right. 

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124 A Civic Reader 

Joan of Arc, Nathan Hale and Benedict Arnold 

Joan of Arc was burned at the stake but never 
flinched in her loyalty to the cause she served. 
Nathan Hale was one of the greatest heroes of all 
time and we do well to read the story of his loyalty 
over and over again. He was willing to die but he 
was not willing to betray his country. He believed 
and was ready to die for his belief. As we say of 
a great ship that is sunk he went down "with colors 
flying/' He could not be a traitor to the country he 
loved. To his way of thinking death was far better. 
No one ever tires in reading the story of such a 
brave and loyal gentleman. His name shines forth 
on the pages of history like a bright star whose light 
never grows dim. One of the best things we can 
say of any man is to say that he is another Nathan 
Hale; and one of the worst things we can say of a 
man is to say that he is another Benedict Arnold. 
Arnold's name is a by-word but Nathan Hale's is 
a crown of glory. How many times Arnold must 
have wished that he had been loyal! But it was 
too late. He tried to hide from the world and from 
himself, but he could never forget that he was a 
traitor. Nathan Hale suffered once but Arnold 
suffered every day to the end of his unhappy life. 

Booth, Philip Nolan and Judas 

A traitor is one who is not loyal and faithful 
to those who trust him. Judas was the worst 
traitor of all for he sold his Lord for money. Every 
traitor, of course, is like Judas in some respects 



Loyalty 125 

and degree. Benedict Arnold sold his country. 
Philip Nolan whose story we read in "A Man With- 
out A Country" cursed his home country and said 
he hoped never to hear the name of that land again. 
He was a traitor because he was not loyal to the 
country that trusted him. A boy can be a traitor 
to his country, to his state, to his community, to 
his school, or to his home. Or, he may be loyal to 
his country, state, community, school or home. If 
he is loyal to his country he will do everything in 
his power to serve its best interests. Booth was 
most disloyal to his country when he killed Presi- 
dent Lincoln. Instead of helping his country, he 
did it great harm and brought much sorrow upon 
it. So, any one is a traitor to his country who dis- 
turbs the peace of that country or puts any obstacle 
in the way of its prosperity. A man who starts 
a Are in a forest is a traitor. He both disturbs the 
peace and hinders prosperity for he destroys the 
trees that would have produced lumber for many 
homes. He is a traitor, also, who wrecks a train, 
poisons a river, starts a riot, or wrecks a home. 

Loyalty to The Community 

In the same and other ways a man may be a 
traitor to his state. If he is loyal he will do his 
best to help on its progress. Jails and peniten- 
tiaries are built only for those who are less than 
loyal. If all people were faithful to the best inter- 
ests of the state we should not need such institu- 
tions, and our courts would have much less work 
to do. It requires a great deal of money and the 



126 A Civic Reader 

time of many people to keep the state in repair when 
there are disloyal people about. The unfaithful 
ones must be arrested, kept in jail, tried in court, 
and fed and guarded in the penitentiary and all 
these things are expensive. If the money we spend 
on criminal courts, jails, and penitentiaries could 
only be saved for schools and colleges we should 
all be the better off. If every person were loyal to 
the state in which he lives the taxes would be much 
less and the people far happier. Then public 
officials would work as hard at public business as 
if it were their private business. They would save 
the public money as if it were their own. Their 
expense accounts would never be larger than sim- 
ilar accounts of private citizens and their interest in 
public affairs would be as intense as if they were 
working for themselves. In short, they would be 
loyal and faithful. 

The Loyal Citizen 

The man who is loyal to his community does 
not shrink from hard work if only he may be of 
service. He works hard to get the best men elected 
as public officials. He wants men in office who 
will show unselfish interest in the welfare of all 
the people. He would have men elected who will 
not use public office to increase the value of their 
own property, who will not have the street im- 
proved on which they live and give no attention 
to the others, and who will not improve the school 
which their children attend but neglect the others. 
The man who is loyal strives to improve living 



Loyalty 127 

conditions for every man, woman, and child in the 
community. He is deeply interested in all matters 
that concern the health of the people and tries to 
arouse a like interest among his neighbors. He 
gives of his time and his energy and finds it a 
pleasure. He takes an interest in having good 
streets and in having them kept clean. He works 
for a public park and a public library but does none 
of these things to advertise himself. He is quite 
willing to have the credit go to others if only he 
can get the things done. He makes community in- 
terests a personal matter and often neglects his own 
business to help on the work of the community as 
a whole. 

Loyalty In School 

The boy who plays truant is not loyal to his 
school or his home. His parents feed and clothe 
him and provide books for him and trust him to 
use all these things in the right way. If he does 
not do so he shows himself disloyal and is, at heart, 
a traitor to that home. He is treating his parents 
just as Benedict Arnold treated his country. He 
is disloyal to the school at the same time and in 
much the same way. He pretends that he is ill 
or must stay at home to work and so is deceiving 
both the school and the home. The parents think 
he is in school and the teacher thinks he is at home, 
but he is at neither and so is unfaithful to those 
who trust him. The truant is a cheap sort of boy 
and does not have those sterling qualities which 
make for strong vigorous manhood. A boy who will 
deceive his own mother is a flabby fellow. He lacks 



128 A Civic Reader 

grit as well as gumption. He is a mollusk and 
does not have the manhood that goes to make up 
loyalty. The boy who is loyal to his home and his 
school will work or even fight for the good name of 
both. He believes in his parents and in his teacher 
and no one dares to speak ill of them in his pres- 
ence. His loyalty gives him courage and he would 
scorn to be guilty of any conduct that would give 
a bad name to his school or his home. 

How to be Loyal 

We can not emphasize this quality of loyalty 
too much. The boy or the girl who lacks this quality 
is a weakling. We must believe in something and 
believe hard enough to work and endure for that 
something if we expect to become the sort of cit- 
izens that our country needs. We must believe 
in our school and the education it represents. We 
must believe in our church and the principles for 
which it stands. We must believe in our homes and 
the honest virtues which they represent. We must 
believe in our flag and all that it signifies. And we 
must believe in all these so hard that we shall be 
willing to suffer and make sacrifices for them. 
Otherwise, we shall be slack, and shifty, and fickle, 
and namby-pamby. We must be both able and 
willing to stand for something or we shall not be 
able to stand at all. The story of Ruth is a beautiful 
one. She did not choose the easy course, but she did 
choose what she considered the right one. She was 
willing to work hard and deny herself all of the 
luxuries and many of the comforts of life that she 



Loyalty 129 

might be a help to her mother-in-law. She was not 
thinking how much she could get, but she was think- 
ing how much she could do and give. She was loyal 
and her loyalty was her supreme charm. 

Loyalty to Our Best Selves 

There is something within each one of us that 
tells us which is the right way and which the wrong 
one. If we are loyal to this silent guide we shall 
not go far astray. We can be disloyal to our best 
selves just as we can be disloyal to our country or 
to people. If we are not loyal to our best selves we 
are betraying the still small voice within us quite 
as truly as Arnold betrayed his country. If we 
are loyal to what we know to be right we shall 
never betray our homes, or school, our neighbors, or 
our country. The colors of our flag will never grow 
dim because of us, our homes will never wear 
mourning because of us, and the average of life in 
our neighborhood will never be lowered because 
of us. A little girl was brought into court in Japan 
and refused to answer a question fearing she might 
do harm to her father. Later it was discovered 
that she had deliberately bitten through her tongue 
that she might not speak the harmful word. She 
was loyal to her best self and therefore was loyal 
to her father. The war produced no more heroic 
figure than the man who stood erect on the deck 
of the ship that had been torpedoed and went to 
his death that the women and children might be 
saved. He could die but he could not be disloyal to 
the teachings of his mother. 

9 



130 A Civic Reader 

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

To whom are we under obligations to be loyal? Give a 
reason for each answer. Why was the question of loyalty to 
our government seldom raised before the World War? To 
what extent should people be loyal to their relations? State 
several reasons why we have no patience or use for a traitor. 
Do you think that ignorance is a good excuse for disloyalty? 
Why is loyalty to your friends so essential to your happiness? 
How do you feel toward the person who feels too good for 
the community in which he lives? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The teacher may ask each member of the class to write 
the best possible statement of loyalty. During the World War 
the loyalty of many people born in this country was questioned. 
Try to explain the reasons for this fact. Read "The Man 
Without a Country," and then discuss the lesson of Loyalty it 
teaches. Choose from history two or three examples of loyalty 
to the cause they were supporting, by men and women who are 
good examples for us to follow. 



XV. PLAYING THE GAME 



A WRITER of note tells of a game of cards by 
British officers in India in which one of 
the players was caught cheating. In their 
code of honor there is no forgiveness for such an 
act. So, this officer was driven out of the army in 
disgrace. He tried to hide from the world by 
changing his name but in some far away place was 
recognized and driven out again. It was an awful 
price, of course, which this man had to pay but he 
knew the rules of the game when he began to play. 
He would have been just as guilty if he had not 
been caught for he was a cheat at heart. He simply 
staked his reputation upon his ability to go on cheat- 
ing and not be detected. A boy who stole an auto- 
mobile wept bitterly and a bystander wondered 
whether he was sorry because he stole the car or 
because he was caught. The world has but little 
use for a sneak or a cheat but it can know about 
him only when he is caught. But the cheat knows 
what he is at heart whether he is caught or not. 
The thief knows himself to be a thief even though 
he never goes to jail for theft. If he escapes arrest 
he laughs and congratulates himself upon his 
shrewdness but he is a thief for all that. The card- 
player was probably a cheat long before he was 
caught and would have cheated in other transactions 
if he had had a chance. 

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132 A Civic Reader 

The Cheater An Example 

The boy who cheats in his lessons will cheat 
elsewhere. He is wrong inside and is always look- 
ing for a chance to cheat in the big game of life. 
If he becomes a grocer he will send out to his 
customer 15 ounces of sugar or coffee but will 
charge for a pound. He knows that the customer 
trusts him and will not re-weigh what he sends. If 
he becomes a contractor and is building a house he 
will use inferior material and cover up the defect 
that the owner may not discover it. The specifica- 
tions call for materials of a certain grade but he 
laughs at specifications when the owner of the 
house is absent. He expects the owner to pay him 
full price for both material and work but he does 
not give full value in return. He is a cheat and does 
not play the game with the owner. If he becomes a 
gardener he will use boxes for his berries that con- 
tain false bottoms, or he will put the large berries 
at the top. He is trying all the while to deceive 
his customer. He will accept more money than he 
is entitled to and calls it shrewd business. He is 
a cheat and he knows it but is anxious to keep 
his customer in ignorance of the fact. He does 
not play the game with his customers and belongs 
in the class with the card-player. 

The Merchant 

A merchant had on display in the show-window 
an article of merchandise with a card attached. On 
this card were the numerals twelve dollars. Through 



Playing The Game 133 

these numerals two red lines had been drawn and 
below were printed the numerals five dollars. 
A man on the outside gazed at this sign for sev- 
eral minutes in deep thought. He knew that the 
merchant would not sell such a staple article for 
less than it cost. It was offered for sale at five 
dollars and, he argued, the cost of the article could 
not have been more than four dollars. But there 
was the mark of twelve dollars with the red lines 
through it. So, he entered the store and asked the 
merchant to tell him, man to man, the whole truth 
about the matter. Whereupon, the merchant told 
him frankly that he had never tried to sell the 
article for twelve dollars but put that mark upon 
it to cause people to think they would be getting it 
at a bargain if they paid five dollars for it. "But," 
the man asked, "do you think that is honest?" "No, 
it isn't," the merchant replied, "but it is the practice 
of all the merchants on the street and I do just 
what the others are doing. You are the only person 
who has asked for an explanation. Very few people 
do any thinking about such a matter but act upon 
mere impression. They see the twelve dollar mark 
then snap it up at five dollars. I am simply taking 
advantage of their inability to think. But I see 
your point and I shall discontinue the practice." 
This merchant was made to see that he had not 
been playing the game. 

A Boy Who Played The Game 

In the final game of ball by two teams that 
represented towns between which there w T as bitter 



134 A Civic Reader 

rivalry a boy reached third base and the umpire 
called him safe. But the boy left the bag and 
walked over to the bench. The boys of his team 
yelled at him to go back telling him in a noisy way 
that the umpire had called him safe. He did not 
heed them but went right on and when he reached 
the bench he said quietly, "I was out; the umpire 
could not see." This boy lost the game and the 
championship for his team and many of the people 
of his town said harsh things to him and of him. 
Later on the papers took the matter up and the 
editors were a unit in saying that to have such a 
boy in a town was better than to have the champion- 
ship. And to this day people point him out as the 
boy who brought so much honor to their town. The 
question arises "Did this boy play the game?" He 
knew he was out and he was the only one who did 
know it. Had he held the base and won the game 
he would have carried this knowledge with him 
all through life. He would have thought of it every 
time he looked at himself in the glass. By doing 
as he did he kept this cloud off his life and is able 
to look everybody straight in the face. Yes, he 
played the game and the game he played that day 
was bigger than any game of ball. 

A Workman Who Played The Game 

When his customer entered the shop the work- 
man who was making a table for him was sand- 
papering and polishing the under side of the top. 
The customer saw what he was doing and asked at 
once "Why, man, what are you doing that for? 



Playing The Game 135 

You are doing a lot of unnecessary work. That 
part of the table will not be seen and if you don't 
polish it nobody will ever know it." The workman 
looked and smiling said "Yes, somebody will know 
it; I'll know it. If I didn't polish this part of your 
table I'd think about it for the rest of my life. By 
doing this little bit of extra work I get rid of that 
burden. So, you see I'm doing the easy thing by 
polishing it." Then, whistling, he went on with 
the work. Any of us would lend money to a man 
like that for we know that he will always play the 
game. If a man is honest with himself he will 
be honest with others. If he isn't honest with 
himself he will not be honest with others and 
that tells the whole story. The man who does 
not pay his fare on the street-car will cheat 
a customer when he reaches his store if the chance 
comes. The man who puts a counterfeit coin into 
the collection box at church will take advantage 
of a widow in a business deal. The man who does 
not play fair in small things will not play fair in 
large ones. The man who doesn't play the game 
with himself will not play it with others. 

Playing the Game in Business 

If the man who plays the game is selling wheat 
he gives just sixty pounds to the bushel, no more 
and no less. If he is selling cloth he gives thirty- 
six inches to the yard, not thirty-five nor thirty- 
seven. If he is selling coffee he gives just sixteen 
ounces to the pound. If he is selling meat he does 
not sell wrapping-paper at the price of meat. He 



136 A Civic Reader 

insists that his measures, his scales, and his yard- 
stick shall tell the exact truth for they represent 
him. In all his dealings he tells the truth and 
nothing but the truth whether he is under oath or 
not. He never dodges when he meets a policeman. 
If all men were such as he there would be no need 
for policemen. He does the thing because it is 
just and right and not because some one tells him 
he must do it. If he is selling a horse he points 
out every blemish that his customer may know just 
what he is buying. If he says he will pay a bill at 
a given hour on a certain day he is there at that 
time with the money. His neighbors say that his 
word is as good as his bond. He has won that 
reputation because that is the character of the man. 
He is just what he seems to be, neither more nor 
less. If he says yes, he means yes; if he says no, 
he means no. But he thinks carefully before he 
says either. Men trust him because they know he 
can be trusted. 

Playing the Game in School Work 

If boys and girls play fair in all their work in 
school they will gain the habit of fair play and 
will then play the game in life. If they play fair 
with the teacher and their school-mates they will 
play fair with their neighbors and the folks at 
home. If they play fair in the arithmetic class 
they will play fair when they grow up and go into 
business or into one of the professions. If a boy 
tries to palm off on the teacher as his own work 
a problem that some one solved for him he is simply 



Playing The Game 137 

trying to get a grade that he does not deserve and 
that is cheating. If he is not caught at it he may 
boast of it to the other boys. Then they will know 
that he is a cheat and will not forget when they 
have become men. They will be watching him all 
the while. He may imagine that they have for- 
gotten the matter but, in this, he is mistaken and 
when they find him engaged in some transaction 
that will not bear the light they tell their business 
associates that he was just like that when he was 
a boy in school, that he never would play fair. A 
boy does not change his habits when he leaves 
just as he can not change the color of his hair. If 
he is square in school he will be square on the 
farm, in the shop, or in public office. So, one of 
the best things boys and girls can learn in school 
is to play fair. 

Playing Fair With Others 

If every girl and boy would play the game fair 
with parents, teachers, and companions; if every 
business man would play fair with his associates 
and customers; if every man who employs labor 
would play fair with all his employes and they 
would all play fair with him; if every woman 
would play fair with all those who work for her, 
milliners, dress-makers, maids and washer-women 
and all these would play fair with her; if every 
man and every woman would play fair with every 
other man and woman, life would be better and 
happier for all of us. We could leave our doors 
unbolted for there would be no burglars to steal 



138 A Civic Reader 

our things. Our neighbors would have no occasion 
to think or speak ill of us. We should have no 
occasion to go to law against our neighbors nor 
would they ever find it necessary to bring us into 
court. There would be no strikes on the railroads, 
on street-car lines, in mills or factories. There 
would be good- will and not strife; there would be 
trust and not envy and suspicion ; and we should all 
be doing unto others as we would have them do 
unto us for the Golden Rule means that we should 
all play the game and play it fair. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

What does playing the game mean to you? If you have 
read "Pollyanna" what do you think of the story? Who are 
the greatest baseball players of whom you know? Find out 
if each one of them does not play the best possible game at 
all times. Where do almost all people come in contact with 
the pure food laws? Discuss the advantages of these laws. 
Wliy is it necessary for you to have confidence in the people 
from whom you buy? Who is a profiteer? Does he play the 
game? Why is counterfeiting such a low profession? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

The people who buy and sell in any community have rep- 
utations according to their way of dealing with other people. 
See if this is not true among the people you know. Find 
out what laws have been passed in your state or community 
which require people to give honest weight, measure, and 
quality. Why are such laws necessary? Have each boy and 
girl in the class tell of some game which was lost on account 
of some one not doing his best. Make a list of the good qual- 
ities of some man or woman of whom you know or of whom 
you have read. 



XVI. THE MASTER AMERICAN 



WE all know that a schoolmaster is the 
master of the school. He is not a mere 
boss but a master, which is a very- 
different thing. He is a master of all the subjects 
that his pupils are to learn and knows how to put 
them in the way of learning these subjects. He 
shows them where they are liable to make mistakes 
and points out to them the right ways of doing 
things. All these things he can do because he is 
master in the work. A master carpenter does the 
same for the pupil whom he is teaching the trade. 
He teaches him the use of the various tools, saw, 
hammer, square, plane, and chisel. He shows him 
how to plan the work, how to join the parts, and 
how to save lumber and time. We call such a man 
a master carpenter. So we have master plumbers, 
master painters, and master mechanics of many- 
kinds. The master is one who has a thorough 
knowledge of the business and teaches it to others. 
But, first of all, he must gain a mastery of the work 
himself and, indeed, he must gain the habit of 
mastery. The boy either masters his task or per- 
mits it to master him. This task may be a problem 
at school, mowing the lawn, or repairing a machine. 
If he masters each task he undertakes he gains the 
habit of mastery and so wins confidence in him- 
self and will undertake more and more difficult 
tasks. 

(139) 



140 A Civic Reader 

The Mastery of Tasks 

The person who masters every task he under- 
takes masters himself at the same time. And self- 
mastery is the highest type of mastery. When he 
begins a piece of work he will not permit himself 
to quit until the work is done. He holds himself 
up to the mark and forces himself to go through 
with it. He can not permit himself to be a slacker 
or a quitter. If he should quit before the end of 
the task he would lose the mastery of himself and 
this he can not bring himself to do. Unless he is 
master of himself he scorns himself as a weakling 
and knows himself to be less than the boy or the 
man he ought to be. Being master of himself he 
has no fear of the task, for he knows himself to 
be greater than the task, and, since he has mastered 
himself, he can master it. The task before him may 
be the learning of a poem, ploughing a field, break- 
ing a colt, or making a tunnel through the mountain. 
Whatever it is, he knows that such things have been 
done and feels himself able to repeat them. A 
mountain is less than a man and, therefore, the 
man who has won the mastery of himself must 
conquer the mountain unless he would show himself 
to be less than the mountain and, hence, less than 
a man. So he bores through the mountain to prove 
that he is still master of himself. 

The Mastery of Situations 

The Master American is the American who is 
always master of himself. For, then, he is always 



The Master American 141 

master of every situation in which he may be 
placed. He may be a carpenter, a farmer, a mer- 
chant, or a preacher. Whatever his work he is 
master of it, and always does it in a masterful 
way. In fact we might call him the masterful 
American for he is never less than a masterful 
man. When we see a boy quitting before he has 
reached the top of the hill with his wheelbarrow 
load of brick, we witness a tragedy for he has let 
his task master him. He is underneath and not 
on top as a master should be. His work has proved 
too much for him merely because he was not big 
enough for it. We pity him because of his weak- 
ness and lack of grit and perseverance, and a boy 
of spirit would far rather be kicked than pitied. 
The other boy who, in spite of sore hands, aching 
muscles, and trembling legs, holds on until he has 
reached the top with his load of brick, forgets his 
aches in the joy of triumph. He is a victor for 
he has not allowed a wheelbarrow load of brick to 
get him down. There was no tragedy connected with 
the task for he came out of the struggle on top. 
He is the sort of boy to whom we look for leader- 
ship and big work for he has already shown him- 
self to be a Master American. 

Self-Respect 

There are certain marks by which we tell a 
Master American when we see him. The first of 
these is self-respect, and this means respect for 
his body, his mind, and his spirit. He respects his 
body too much to defile it with poison of any kind 



142 A Civic Reader 

or by practices that weaken it. He is master of his 
body, and so keeps it clean and in good condition. 
He obeys the commands of good sense and never 
of mere appetite. The right sort of food, fresh 
air, exercise, and a cheerful disposition are the 
agencies he uses. If he becomes ill he goes to the 
physician for treatment but does not put into his 
stomach the patent medicines that may be had at 
the drug-store. He respects his body so much that 
he takes good care of it. Again he respects his mind 
and, so, is busy all the while trying to improve it. 
He does not permit weeds and slime to gather upon 
it but by keeping it alert and busy he keeps it 
clean. It is the delicate instrument that he will 
need all through life and he feels that he must keep 
it in good working order. Only so, will it do the 
kind of work that a master would have it do. And, 
again, he respects his spirit and keeps it clean 
and free from spots and blemishes. So, like the 
master that he is, he stands guard over his body, 
his mind, and his spirit day and night that no 
foe may harm them. 

The Producer 

Then, too, this Master American is a producer. 
He may raise wheat, or hogs, or cattle, or he may 
raise the tone of his community. Whenever any 
movement is set on foot for the betterment of living 
conditions he gives it his hearty support. He is 
never so busy with his own affairs that he can not 
spare some time and effort in helping to provide 
pure water, fresh air, clean streets, parks, and play- 



The Master American 143 

grounds for all the people. He believes in and 
works for churches, schools, and libraries that the 
people may have helps along the way. He believes 
in people and is always eager and glad to bring 
joy into their lives. Again, he earns more than he 
spends and so is master of his bills, never permit- 
ting them to master him. If he can not afford a 
thing he does not buy it. Only so can he keep his 
self-mastery. He knows what he can and what he 
can not afford and so never allows debt to become 
his master. If he needs more money he reduces his 
expenses or works harder, or both, and so does not 
go under but holds his place on top. He feels that 
it is far better to give up some of the things he 
would like to have than to give up the mastery of 
the situation and become a slave to circumstances. 
Thus he controls circumstances and never permits 
them to control him. He is his own master and is 
master of his own affairs. 

A Master Has Faith 

And this man has faith, also. The kind of faith 
he has is a something that creates and is far more 
than a mere belief. It this man is a farmer, he 
has faith in the soil, in the rain, in the sunshine, 
and, best of all, in himself. So he is urged on by 
his faith and plants his fields months before he 
can hope for a harvest. His faith is with him as 
he ploughs and prepares his field, as he invests his 
money in seed, and as he puts this seed into the 
ground. His faith holds him to his task for he is 
looking ahead to the time when golden grain will 



144 A Civic Reader 

be billowing in the field. It was faith that kept 
Cyrus W. Field at his task until he had finally 
stretched a cable across the ocean. When the cable 
broke in mid-ocean he did not quit, but kept right 
on. A man with such faith doesn't know how to 
quit until his task is done. With the eye of faith 
Ghiberti saw the bronze doors of the Baptistry over 
there in Florence long before he began the actual 
work. Then it took him forty-two years to make 
his dream come true. All the while he saw those 
doors as they were to be and as they are and he 
could not stop until the work was done. He was too 
busy and too much in earnest to heed the criticism 
that was heaped upon him. So this Master Ameri- 
can smiles at criticism and at obstacles for he is 
intent up his work. His faith sees the goal far 
ahead and this faith holds him steady, and calm, 
and patient until that goal is reached. 

A Master is a Thinker 

And he is a thinker, too. Some one has said 
of such a man "He plans his work and then works 
his plan." He always knows where he is going, 
what he will do when he gets there, and how he 
will do it. He does not zig-zag through life but 
goes in a direct line because he thinks out his course 
in advance. He knows that thinking is the first 
step in the process of creating. He knows that some 
one got to thinking of rapid travel before there 
were any railroads and that the railroads came 
as the result of that thinking. He knows that 
some one thought about travel in the air before 



The Master American 145 

there was an airplane and th$t this machine fol- 
lowed the course of this thinking. So this man 
thinks before he acts If he is going on a journey 
he makes a careful study of the time-tables, noting 
where he changes cars, how much time he will have 
at each place, and what the arrangements are for 
meals and sleeping. Thus he sees the end from the 
beginning and when he takes his seat in the train 
the entire plan is settled and he moves along on 
the line of his thinking without anxiety. Nor does 
he depend upon the thinking of other people. He 
hears what they have to say and then proceeds to 
think out a course for himself. He does not move 
with the crowd unless he finds the crowd going on 
his line. He is not a drifter but always follows a 
definite plan which is the result of his thinking. 

The Conduct of a Master American 

He feels himself to be a sort of second edition 
of Atlas, not carrying the world upon his shoulders 
but carrying America upon them. Wherever he 
goes, he feels that he has the reputation of his 
country to protect, and that if they think well of 
him they will think well of America because of 
what he is and does. They will think that all Amer- 
icans are high-class or low-class according to what 
he is. They will think that Americans are coarse, 
boorish, and ignorant or fine, cultured, and in- 
telligent according to whether he is ignorant or 
intelligent. If his tastes are low and his conduct 
rude or vulgar people from other lands will think 

10 



146 A Civic Reader 

all Americans are the same. So he holds himself 
erect, sees to it that his conduct is right, that his 
tastes are high, and that his body, mind, and spirit 
are kept clean and wholesome, not only for his 
own comfort but also that the good name of America 
may not suffer on account of him. He would be 
such a man as all other men might take as their 
model. For he knows that if he is master of 
himself and that if they pattern after him other 
men will become masters of themselves and that, 
in due time, mastery will become a national trait. 
He can think of no greater honor that may come 
to him than to have people say of him "He is a 
Master American." 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Write your own description of "The Master American." 
Name several things which other people say you have done 
well. Have each member of the class choose from history his 
Master American. Then tell all the reasons for the choice. 
Why is a boy or girl honest? Why do many boys and girls 
refuse to do things which are harmful to their health or stand- 
ing in the community? The writer knows a boy who used 
tobacco for years until he was sixteen years of age, then gave 
up the practice. Why did he do this? Why do boys and girls 
resent too much reference to fair play? Is it possible for all 
of us to be Master Americans? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

In many places the schools have contests in which boys 
and girls compete. The prizes are for the BEST of each 
product. Poultry raising, stock raising, gardening, dress- 



The Master American 147 

making, fruit and vegetable canning, baking, cooking, house- 
keeping and dress are among the subjects for contests. Show- 
how such contests develop Master Americans. Show by many 
examples that where any one lives does not mean as much 
as how he lives and what he does. A few years ago boys 
and girls were given credit for not doing things they should 
not do. Show that it is better to give them credit for the things 
they do which they should do, 



XVII. OUR GOVERNMENT 



AS a rule, people seem to think that our gov- 
ernment is located at Washington. True, 
*" the government has its main offices at 
Washington and we are right in thinking that the 
government has its headquarters in that city. But 
if we think that our government does not extend 
beyond the city limits of Washington we are much 
mistaken. A large factory may have its office out 
in front but the office is not the whole of the plant 
by any means. The office is a very important part 
of the factory, for there the plans are made and 
from it orders go out to all the men who work in 
the factory. But the office alone can not do the 
work of the factory. The buildings in which the 
goods are made are as necessary as the office. The 
men in these buildings depend upon the office for 
their instructions and their pay and the men in 
the office depend upon the workers for the making 
of the goods. Each group of men depends upon 
the other, and if any group should quit work 
the factory would close. Just so our government 
has its main office at Washington but this city is 
not the whole government by any means just as 
the office is not the whole of the factory. Wherever 
there is a voter, there is a part of our govern- 
ment. 

(148) 



Our Government 149 

The President and His Cabinet 

This fact ought to be kept clearly in mind all 
the while or we shall fail to know just what our 
government really is. Every four years the voters 
elect a President who goes to Washington and lives 
at the White House. Now, the White House does not 
belong to the President but to all the people of our 
country. The President lives there for four years, 
or for eight years if he is reelected, and the people 
furnish him this place of residence free of rent. 
They pay him a salary, also, because he is there to 
work for them in the way of managing their affairs. 
But the President can not look after all this business 
alone. So he selects nine men to help him and 
these men make up his Cabinet. They meet with 
him and together they talk over the business of the 
nation and decide upon plans. Then they send out 
instructions to other men in all parts of the country 
and these other men carry out these instructions 
and make them known to the people. The Presi- 
dent and his Cabinet may decide upon changes of 
plans in the evening and the next morning all the ■ 
people in San Francisco would be told of these 
plans and would be expected to obey the new orders. 
So we see that Washington is merely the office 
from which orders are sent out to the workers in 
all parts of the country wherever there is a voter. 

Senators and Representatives 

As was said before the White House does not 
belong to the President but is the property of all the 



150 A Civic Reader 

people of the nation whether they live in Maine 
or in California. You and I as citizens are part- 
owners of that property as well as the furnishings 
— -carpets, pictures, furniture, dishes, and auto- 
mobiles. We are part owners, too, of the Capitol 
at Washington and all that it contains, as well as t 
the Congressional Library which is one of the most 
beautiful buildings in the world. It gives us all 
a feeling of pleasure to know that these buildings 
belong to us whether we have ever seen them or 
not. They are the buildings which we provide as 
offices for the men we send to Washington to look 
after our affairs. We send Senators and Repre- 
sentatives to make laws for us and furnish them 
the Capitol in which to do their work. These men 
make up our Congress and each state is represented 
both in the House and in the Senate. But the 
Capitol does not belong to these men. It belongs 
to us. They merely work there for a time helping 
to manage our business for us. As voters we elect 
them and, therefore, every voter is a part of our 
^government. If our government is not all that it 
should be every voter has a chance to make it 
better. If he fails to do so he must take a part 
of the blame upon himself. 

It is well for all pupils in school to think on 
this matter with care. In just a few years they 
will be voters and they can determine now what 
sort of government they want. They can keep in 
mind the type of man they will vote for as Presi- 
dent and what Senators and Representatives they 



Our Government 151 

will send to represent them in Congress. If they 
elect a high-grade man to the presidency they may 
be certain that he will select high-grade men to be 
members of his Cabinet. If they elect high-grade 
men as Congressmen they can be certain that such 
men will enact wise laws that will benefit the peo- 
ple in all the states. Right here there are three 
rather long words that we all ought to learn. These 
three words tell us of the branches of our govern- 
ment. The President is the Executive head of our 
government; Congress is the legislative branch; 
and the Supreme Court is the judicial branch. 
Congress makes our laws, the Supreme Court ex- 
plains the laws, and the President executes the laws, 
that is he sees to it that the laws are obeyed. He 
has at his command the Army and Navy and these 
he uses as a police force to aid him in making 
certain that the laws are obeyed. 

The Army and The Navy 

If trouble should arise along the border be- 
tween our country and Mexico the President would 
send some soldiers to the scene of trouble to protect 
our people. When riots and strikes threaten the 
safety of Americans he sends soldiers to do police 
duty that our citizens may not be disturbed as 
they go about their regular tasks. At all times the 
army is subject to the call of the President for 
this sort of police service for he is the Commander- 
in-Chief of the Army and every officer as well as 
every private must obey his commands. It will be 
seen, then, that the army is a part of our govern- 



152 A Civic Reader 

ment. Some of our soldiers may be stationed in 
Europe, others in the Philippines, others in Porto 
Rico and others along the Mexican border. Wher- 
ever they are they are a part of the government 
and get their orders from the main office. This 
is true of the Navy, also. If one of our ships 
should be fired upon in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro 
or of Gibraltar that would be an offence against 
our government quite the same as if one of our 
government buildings in Washington had been fired 
upon. And the government in whose harbor the 
offence was committed would be brought to account 
for the act. Every officer and every sailor on all 
our ships wherever they may happen to be is a part 
of our government and is helping to carry on the 
affairs of the government for the good of all the 
people. 

Two Cabinet Officials 

Two of the Cabinet officials are the Secretary 
of War and the Secretary of the Navy. The former 
has charge of all affairs relating to the army and 
the latter of affairs of the navy. Of course, the 
President makes known his desires to these officials 
and they send the orders to the army or the navy 
as the case may be. Each of the officials has a large 
building as his office and it need hardly be said 
that each one has a large force of helpers. In the 
War Department is kept a record of each officer 
and soldier as well as of all equipment including 
cannons, guns, munitions, tents, automobiles, trucks, 
and clothing. This is all government work and, 
so, each of these helpers is a part of our govern- 



Our Government 153 

ment. In the Navy Department which is the office 
of the Secretary of the Navy is kept a record of 
each ship, each officer, and of each sailor. This 
Department must know where every ship is at any 
given time, what its plans are, and every item of its 
equipment. The guns on each ship, the clothing of 
the sailors, and all the instruments are the property 
of the government and a record must be kept of 
them. 

The Pcstoffice Department 

Another Cabinet official is the Postmaster Gen- 
eral who also has a very large building as his office. 
As his title tells us his work is to manage the mails 
for the people and this is a large task. Every post- 
office in the country must make a report to this 
Department and the records show how many stamps 
are sold in each of these many postoffices. Hence, 
every postoffice is a part of our government and 
helps to carry on the business of the government 
for the convenience of all the people. In Augusta, 
Maine, a girl trips down the steps of her home 
and drops a letter into the mail-box at the corner. 
In a week, or less, another girl in San Diego, Cali- 
fornia, receives this same letter from the hand of a 
postman at the front door of her home and reads 
the message from her friend in Maine. The girl 
in Maine did not speak to any one about the letter 
nor did the girl in California. And yet that letter 
made a trip of three thousand miles. The govern- 
ment had charge of it all the while and charged but 
two cents for the service. In one way and another 
hundreds of men had to do with taking that letter 



154 A Civic Reader 

and each one is a part of the government and draws 
his pay from the government for that kind of 
service for the people. 

The Mail Service 

Any boy or girl who is curious about such 
matters and has a liking for statistics can find out 
how many postoffices there are in the country and 
how many people are employed in these offices ; how 
many mail-cars run on all the railroads in the 
country and how many clerks distribute the mail 
in these cars; how many mail-pouches and mail- 
bags are in use and how many people are employed 
in their manufacture; and how many mail-wagons, 
trucks and motorcycles are in use and how many 
people are busy making them. It is possible, too, 
to find out how many stamps are sold in all these 
offices in a year. There are many large business 
concerns that send out as many as one thousand 
pieces of mail each day, and receive an equal num- 
ber. If all our people average twenty letters a 
year the stamps on those letters placed end to end 
would reach around the world. This does not take 
into account the books, papers, magazines, and pack- 
ages of merchandise that are sent in such large 
quantities. Thinking of these matters for only a 
few minutes gives us a feeling that the mail service 
of our government is a wonderful enterprise. 

Other Members of The Cabinet 

There are still five other members of the 
Cabinet. These are Secretary of State who has 



Our Government 155 

charge of all business with other governments; 
Secretary of the Treasury who has control of mat- 
ters of finance; Secretary of the Interior who has 
charge of all business relating to government lands, 
the patent office, pensions, Indian tribes, and edu- 
cation; Secretary of Agriculture, who looks after 
the interests of the farmers, and has charge of the 
weather bureau and public roads ; Secretary of Com- 
merce; Secretary of Labor who has charge of all 
people who come to us from other countries as well 
as all people who work in mines, factories and 
shops; and the Attorney General who advises the 
government in all matters of law. Each of these 
officials has charge of one department of the gov- 
ernment and each one must have a small army of 
helpers in order that he may transact the large 
amount of business that belongs in his department. 
Many of these helpers are found in all parts of the 
country just as every postmaster is one of the 
helpers of the Postmaster General. Our govern- 
ment is an immense affair and affords us all an 
interesting study and it is all the more interesting 
because it is the government of each one of us, and 
is looking after our interests every day and every 
hour of the day. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Show that government is necessary in business, in schooi 
and in society. Why is our National Government the best pos- 
sible form of government? Do you favor a limit of two terms 
of four years each for the President of the United States? 



156 A Civic Reader 

Give the names of several men who have been cabinet officers. 
What was the best accomplishment of each man chosen? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a graph of our National Government; of our State 
Government; of your local government. Find out the names 
of several of the public buildings in Washington. What is the 
purpose of each of these buildings? Study the management of 
the mail service of the United States, and try to find out where 
most of the money for the expenses is raised. What is first 
class mail; second class mail; third class mail; fourth class 
mail; parcel post mail? 



XVIII. COUNTRY LIFE 



LIVING in the country is much more agree- 
. able now than it was when our grandparents 
* were children. In those days people had to 
work harder than they do now for they did not 
have such good machinery as we have. Farmers 
ride on plows and tractors in these days but in the 
old time they walked as they ploughed and were 
very tired when night came. Then they had many 
chores to do before they could go to bed and it is 
little wonder that the morning found them stiff 
and sore. Then, with the implements they had in 
those days it took more hours to do a given piece of 
work and their working day was just as long as 
the number of hours of daylight. From dawn till 
dark they ploughed, or harrowed, or drilled, or 
harvested, and they knew nothing of an eight-hour 
day. There were so many acres to be prepared, 
planted, and cultivated, and that work had to be 
done whatever story the clock might tell. When the 
chickens went to roost was quitting time and when 
the rooster began to crow his welcome to the first 
streaks of dawn was getting up time. In those 
days it made no difference whether the clocks were 
set ahead an hour or back an hour. The chickens 
told the farmer when to get up and when to quit 
work and clocks had very little to do with the 

(157) 



158 A Civic Reader 

matter. And the women worked even longer hours 
than the men for they had to wash the dishes, to 
strain the milk, to look after the little chickens, and 
to put the children to bed. 

The Days of Long Ago 

In those days it took a good team to draw 
twenty-five bushels of corn to the market and some 
farmers had to travel many miles to reach a market 
at all. The roads were so deep with mud that the 
team had to go at a snail's pace. Three miles an 
hour was about the limit and there was no need 
for motor-cops. The poor horses strained and 
struggled through the mud as best they could and 
it was a long weary day before they were in their 
stalls again eating the supper they had so richly 
earned. But the corn must be taken to market for 
there was no other means by which the family could 
buy sugar, coffee, and shoes. It was a day of 
adventure for the man and he had a stirring tale 
to tell of the events of the day as the children 
gathered about him before the big open wood fire. 
They were all eager to know what people and things 
he had seen in the town, how much he had re- 
ceived for his corn, and how many times he had 
to stop to let the horses rest in going up the big 
long hill. If he brought a few sticks of candy home 
with him the children were thrown into a spasm 
of delight. In those times a stick of candy would 
last a child for a week. He would dole it out to 
himself by small pieces that the joy might be pro- 



Country Life 159 

longed. Well he knew that a month must pass 
before he could have another stick. Any boy's 
grandfather can tell him about that stick of candy. 

The Work of The Farmer 

But many changes have been made since those 
days and life in the country is not now the hard 
grinding affair it once was. There is hard work, 
of course, and, in the busy season, there are long 
hours but in these days we have machines for much 
of the work that, years ago, the farmer had to do 
with his own strength. Besides, hard work is a 
pleasure to every one whose heart is in his work. 
The farmer may work hard but he finds so much 
joy in watching his crops coming on so well that 
he forgets that he is tired and feels a sense of pleas- 
ure in the things about him. He sits on the front 
porch after the day's work is done and finds comfort 
in the knowledge that the crops will continue to 
grow during the night because of the work he has 
done during the day. In this respect he has an 
advantage over the man who works in the factory. 
When this man lays down his tools in the evening 
the work stops and will not start again until he 
takes up those tools again in the morning. The 
farmer has many helpers that the factory man does 
not have. The rain that comes in the night helps 
the farmer and is better for his crops than the work 
of many days. The sun's heat is another helper 
and he takes joy in seeing how this heat helps the 
growing crops. The shop man complains of the 



160 A Civic Reader 

heat because it saps his strength but the farmer can 
sit in the cool shade and let the heat work for him. 

Improved Conditions 

Because of our better implements the farmer 
can do far more work in a day that he once could 
and so has more leisure. In the cities the people 
want to be entertained in their leisure hours but 
the farmer has learned how to entertain himself. 
He has a book or a magazine ready to hand in the 
evening that will give him some suggestions for 
his work the next day. He is glad to profit by the 
experience of others and spends the evening in 
finding out about those experiences. Early next 
day he sets to work to put these new ideas into 
practice and finds it as interesting as a new game. 
In fact, he finds all his work much like a fasci- 
nating game and he plays this big game every day 
with real interest and pleasure. He was reading 
of soils last evening and today he has a chance 
to test the truth of what he read. Or he got a 
new notion of spraying trees and today he is eager 
to know how it works. Or, again, he saw a picture 
in the magazine last night of a new kind of feeding 
trough and today he is making one of his own. If 
there is a better way than the one he has been fol- 
lowing he is anxious to know about it and his 
evenings are taken up in reading of these new 
ways and farm devices. He is not so tired as his 
grandfather used to be and does not fall asleep over 
the book before he has found out what he wants 



Country Life 161 

to know. He is an industrious worker but he is 
also a careful thinker. 

Country Schools 

And the roads that now glorify the country 
make life far more pleasant. The same team that 
once could hardly haul twenty-five bushels could now 
haul two or three times as much with greater ease. 
We now have our pikes and our macadam roads 
that are as smooth and beautiful as city streets. 
We see them winding their way through the land- 
scape like silver bands bathed in sunlight, over 
the hills and across the valleys and we rejoice in 
their beauty and in their usefulness. These roads 
seem to have a magic effect upon the country 
through which they pass. The fences are kept in 
better repair, the houses are made beautiful with 
paint, and the lawns are kept neatly trimmed and 
adorned with flowers. The farmer seems to have 
a deeper feeling of self-respect because of the road 
that passes his farm and is glad to make his farm- 
stead as attractive as the road itself. It would 
shame him to have such an excellent road passing 
by ramshackle buildings, unpainted house, and a 
lawn overrun with weeds. The good road brings 
many people of culture to the neighborhood and he 
is glad to put his premises in such good condition 
that they will delight the eyes of the passer-by. 
Besides, the road gives an added value to his farm 
and so lifts farming and country life as a whole 
to a higher plane of excellence and enjoyment. 

11 



162 A Civic Reader 

The Consolidated School 

The centralized school is another blessing that 
our ancestors did not have. To this school there 
come each morning all the children of a township 
in vans or trucks and here they find all the good 
things that are to be found in the city school. They 
have music, drawing, manual training and a gym- 
nasium. They can have a warm noon-day lunch 
at small expense, if they so desire, for this school 
has a plat of ground on which is raised vegetables 
and fruits that are kept for the winter and are 
used in the preparation of these noon-day lunches, 
that are furnished at actual cost. In this school 
the parents meet, also, and make plans for the 
betterment of the community. In this way they 
come to have common interests and so are brought 
closer together in their feeling. When they come 
to associate in these community affairs they find 
that their neighbors are all good folks and they 
are glad to live and work with such people. Now 
and then they meet for a community sing and 
the evening is one of rare delight. The old and 
the young sing together the good old songs and 
hymns and both enjoy the experience. The grand- 
mother and the granddaughter play the piano duet 
or grandfather may give them a sample of his skill 
as a bugler when he was a soldier in the war. The 
next day when neighbors meet they stop for a 
friendly chat to express their pleasure in the exer- 
cises of the night before. 



Country Life 163 

The Joys of Country Life 

Here, too, are held church services, Sunday 
school, as well as meetings of the magazine club, the 
poultry club, the pig club, and the corn club. Here 
the school orchestra, and the school band meet for 
practice. Over the good roads of the township 
the people can reach the school in their automobiles 
in a few minutes and their meetings are both pleas- 
ant and profitable. And they have many sources 
of pleasure that city people do not have. The 
children have ample play-grounds while their city 
cousins have cramped little corners in which to play. 
Besides these country boys and girls have space, 
and stars, and sky of which to think. Some chil- 
dren in the city do not know the glory of the starry 
sky and one city girl who was visiting in the country 
confessed that she had never seen the moon before. 
Then, too, there are sounds in the country that the 
city does not have. There is the murmur of the 
brook as it sparkles along over the pebbles; there 
is the soft twitter of the birds as they settle down 
somewhere out of sight in the trees for their night's 
rest; there is the music of the frogs in the pond 
down by the big oak tree; there are the glad crow- 
ing and cackling of chickens, the lowing of the 
cattle, the neighing of the horses and the bleating 
of the sheep. Add to all these things the singing of 
the robin, the cooing of the dove, and the saucy 
note of the blue-jay and we have a symphony that 
must delight the senses of every person who has 
a spirit attuned to music and poetry. 



164 A Civic Reader 

Beauty, Poetry, and Grandeur 

The country is the real home of poetry. There 
one may see the apple-tree in full bloom and this is 
one of natures miracles. In all the wonders of 
fairy-land there is nothing finer than this. There, 
too, one may see a cherry-tree with its branches 
drooping with their glory of ripe fruit. No magic 
wand ever conjured up a sight more entrancing. 
There, again, one may see ripe strawberries smiling 
from their leafy hiding-places while dew-drops 
sparkle their gladness at the beams of the morning 
sun. There, also, one may see the great field of 
billowing wheat, swaying to and fro as if a troop 
of invisible angels were passing over whispering 
it into life and motion. Dull, indeed, must be the 
person who can look upon this scene of golden 
waves and not experience a feeling of wonder and 
awe. In the country one may see the giant trees 
of the forest when the storm has aroused a tumult 
in their branches. They bow their heads before 
the buffeting and then come back to the conflict 
erect and defiant. The thunder rolls, and the 
lightning flashes making the contest seem grim and 
terrible as war and when the storm has passed and 
the sun is shining once more these hardy veterans 
of a thousand conflicts stand quiet and serene as 
if conscious of their victory. Happy are the 
people whose privilege it is to live in the country 
where pure air, pure food, and pure water abound, 
where there is the silence of the night-time and 
the glory of the day, and where music, poetry, and 
beauty give forth their charm. 



Country Life 165 

QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

How are the people of country communities making coun- 
try life better? In what ways do good roads help country life? 
In what ways are country schools better than city schools? 
Discuss the question of whether or not country people work 
harder than city people. Do country or city boys and girls 
have the more money to spend? Who are the better savers? 
Why do many country people move into cities? In how many 
ways do farmers get pay for things they do not do? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a list of the real advantages of living in the country. 
Find out all the advantages the people of many country com- 
munities have now which they did not have twenty or twenty- 
five years ago. By inquiry and reading find out what im- 
provements in farm machinery have been made in the last few 
years. Write your views of where country life would be the 
most satisfactory, as far as location, woods, lakes, streams, 
fruit and other products are concerned. Show how country 
people should have better things to eat than city people. 
Choose five of the best poems you have read which are written 
about country life. 



XIX. THE BUSINESS OF LIVING 



WE all know many men who are in busi- 
ness. One is in the hardware business, 
another in the drug business, another 
in the real-estate business, and still another in the 
farming business. We need all these and the many- 
others who make up the business world for they 
all add to the comfort of us all. But the greatest 
business of all is living and we are all partners 
in this big affair. The grocer and the farmer 
depend upon each other and the others of us de- 
fend upon them both. It would be a sorry day for 
all of us if the farmer should go on a strike and 
the grocer should close his store. If the meat- 
shop should close, the milk-man fail to appear, and 
the baker should cease to make bread, we should 
all be in a bad way. Or, if the railroads should not 
run their freight trains, there would soon be a 
lack of food supplies and all the people would suffer. 
The live-stock could not be taken to the markets, 
nor the flour, fruits, and groceries brought from 
the markets. Just to imagine such a state of affairs 
proves that we are all partners in this great busi- 
ness of living. The millionaire and the railroad 
engineer are closely associated in this business, for 
neither one can get on well without the other. Nor 
can either of them get on without the farmer and 
the miller. 

(166) 



The Business of Living 167 

Life And Living 

Life and living are not the same. Some people 
have life but they do not live in a big way. They 
are merely staying here on earth. They eat, and 
sleep, and walk about, and that is all. In a certain 
city there is a woman who has been confined to her 
bed for fourteen years. We think, at once, that 
she must be a great care to her family. So she is, 
in a way, but she gives them more than they can 
give her. They supply her with food and every 
other possible comfort, but she gives them hope, 
and good cheer, and faith, and glad smiles every 
hour of the day. This woman lives in a much larger 
way than many people who walk about, and her 
manner of living makes that home cheerful and 
happy. She says that she has so many things to be 
thankful for that she can not be less than happy. 
Looking out of the window she can see the sunshine, 
the flowers, the trees, and the birds and she says 
they are good company. And she is a reader of 
books and during the fourteen years of her affliction 
she has gathered a wonderful store of knowledge 
that charms and helps all who come to sit at her 
bedside. She lives in spite of her affliction and 
teaches all who see her that living is far more 
than merely having life. She is a helpful partner 
of the scores of people who come to see her as they 
would go to a spring of sparkling water. 

The Person Who Really Lives 

The man who merely has life may see the gar- 
bage-cans, but he does not see the blue sky and 



i68 A Civic Reader 

he is so busy looking at the ground that he does 
not see the stars overhead. But the man who is 
really living sees both the earth and the sky. His 
mind and spirit are so alive that he knows and 
feels the bigness, and beauty of the world about 
him. He is so taken up with the big things — the 
sky, the sunrise, the landscape, and space — that 
he can smile at the pin-pricks of life. He is big 
and fine and people are glad to see him and know 
him, and are bigger and better because of him. He 
does big things because he lives in a big way. He 
can not be petty and mean; he is too big for that. 
He treats all his partners in the business of living 
as if they, too, were as big and as fine as himself 
and they grow in bigness and fineness because he 
believes in them. He likes people and they like him 
in return. He thinks with Lincoln that the Lord 
must love the common people because he made so 
many of them. He helps a little child to cross the 
street; he grips a neighbor's hand and tells him 
not to lose his courage ; and he comforts the weep- 
ing mother. Then he goes among his associates in 
business and sheds good cheer and they go about 
their work with new hope and new courage in 
their hearts. 

The Useful Citizen 

The people who are really living are good and 
useful citizens. They take an interest in all their 
partners and try to give help wherever help is 
needed. They send flowers and kindly messages 
to the teachers in the schools and thank them for 
what they are doing for their children. They visit 



The Business of Living 169 

the sick taking flowers, books, smiles, and words 
of cheer. They would far rather help than hinder 
and it is a great joy to them to lend a hand. They 
read books not alone for their own pleasure but, 
also, that they may share with others the brave and 
beautiful thoughts that the books give them. When 
they are reading that they may share with others 
they get all the more out of the books for them- 
selves. The more they give to others the more 
they have for themselves. They may carry baskets 
to the poor, but they would rather teach such people 
how to manage their affairs that they may not 
continue to be objects of charity. They think of 
others so much that they have less time in which 
to think of themselves. Their eyes are not turned 
upon themselves but upon others. They are deeply 
interested to know how their partners in the busi- 
ness of living are getting on and this accounts for 
their interest in other people and their thinking 
of other people all the while. 

The Worker 

One large part of the business of living is 
working, for work is the law of life. If we do 
not work we are not dealing fairly with our part- 
ners in this big business. The farmer is busy sup- 
plying food for the rest of us and it is only right 
and fair that we should be working to supply him 
the things that we produce. If the farmer brings 
a barrel of apples to the blacksmith and then the 
blacksmith refuses to shoe the farmer's horses 
there would be a jar in the partnership of these 



170 A Civic Reader 

two men. Each one depends upon the other and, 
if one of them fails to do his share of work the 
other will suffer. Besides, the workers are the 
ones who get the most from life because they are 
giving the most to life. A salesman goes from 
place to place selling his goods and in a week's 
travel meets many people and many situations. 
When he returns on Saturday he can tell of a hun- 
dred experiences that came to him during the week. 
Had he not made the trip he would have missed 
all those experiences and would have had less of 
real living because of the loss. The school-boy who 
solves only seven of the ten problems in the lesson 
does not have as many experiences as the boy who 
solves all of them and so does not have as much 
real living. The boy who solves none of the prob- 
lems does not know the experiences of the others 
at all and soon becomes an outsider. The more 
experiences we have of the right sort the more living 
we do and those who work are the ones who gain 
these experiences. 

Industry And Thrift 

Again the work must be honest and faithful 
or it will not bring to the worker a sense of real 
and satisfactory living. The boy at school who does 
only so much work as will bring him a passing grade 
is not getting the most out of life and is not living 
as he might. If he continues this sort of work he 
will do only so much work in later years as will 
give him three meals a day. The world calls that 
sort of work "living from hand to mouth" and he 



The Business of Living 171 

is a rather cheap sort of man who follows such a 
course. He isn't fair to his partners, whether they 
live in the same house with him or elsewhere. He 
has life but does not have real living. He does 
not work enough to open the pores of his soul so 
that life may stream in from . books, and people, 
and the beauties of nature. Sometimes a man of this 
kind thinks and says that he is the victim of "hard 
luck" and tries to make other people believe it. 
But they do not. They know him for what he 
is and think of him as being lazy and sluggish. If 
he would work more and become thrifty and so try 
to increase his business of living he would win the 
respect of himself and all his partners and each 
day would become a source of joy to him. If he 
could only find some tonic that would put verve and 
go into him living would become a big experience. 
Instead of dragging along through life he would 
walk, and run and have a gbod time every day. 

Working According to Plans 

People who are really alive do their work 
according to a definite plan. They do not work 
in a hit-or-miss way but begin at the beginning 
and go straight through to the end. They do not 
travel in a circle but in a direct line. They do not 
make the mistake of thinking that merely because 
they are in motion they are making progress. They 
know where they are going before they start nor 
do they turn aside or stop until they have reached 
their journey's end. The mother plans the break- 
fast the night before and has everything in readi- 



172 A Civic Reader 

ness. The girl has a definite plan and time for 
each of her lessons and will not permit side-issues 
to break into her plans. The boy enjoys the ball 
game but when the time for study comes he quits 
the game short off and goes to his other task for 
he enjoys working and his plans quite as much as 
he enjoys the game. The farmer knows in ad- 
vance just what his work will be tomorrow nor 
does he quit until that task is done. We call such 
people intelligent workers and so they are for "they 
plan their work then work their plans." They use 
their heads first, then their hands, and so accom- 
plish more and enjoy themselves while they are 
working. In every movement they make they have 
a definite object before them and so do not move 
in a zig-zag, haphazard way. They find it good 
fun to check off the tasks one by one and to find 
that they finished each one on schedule time. 

Interest in Betterments 

The men and women who are living in a real 
and vital way are good citizens. They take an 
interest in every movement that provides for bet- 
terment. They talk over school matters with mem- 
bers of the school board and often make suggestions 
that receive a hearty welcome from these members. 
They see where there are repairs needed on a street 
and promptly report the matter to the council. 
They see a tree that needs attention and make a 
report as they would do if the tree stood on their 
own premises. Or they see a bridge on a country 
road that is in need of repair and go out of their 



The Business of Living 173 

way to let the county commissioners know about it. 
They feel that public business is their business for 
they do not forget that they are in partnership with 
all others in the business of living. They feel that 
the same advantages ought to be given to every 
one that are given to any one. They confer freely 
with members of the legislature as to what laws 
should be enacted for the state and, also, with 
members of congress in regard to national affairs. 
They do all these things because they are alive and 
they become more and more alive because they do 
them. They read books, magazines, and papers that 
they may know what the other partners are think- 
ing and saying. They never stagnate but are like 
a bubbling spring that gives joy to every one who 
stops to drink its cool refreshing water. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Show many reasons why grocery stores are so necessary. 
Who do you think enjoys life the most? Do you know of a 
man or woman who seems to get pleasure in helping others? 
Do you know of a boy or girl who really enjoys doing kind 
acts? Why do so many people fail to do their work as well 
as they should do it? Do people who read and travel enjoy 
life more than if they did not do these things? Do you know 
of any one who was considered a worthless boy or girl who 
is now worth while? If so, try to find out what caused the 
change. Do you think that owning property, automobiles and 
other valuable materials makes a person happy? Why or why 
not? What papers and magazines are best for boys and girls 
to read? If possible have samples of these papers and mag- 
azines so that each member of the class may examine them. 



1/4 A Civic Reader 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a list of as many kinds of business as possible. 
Be careful to distinguish between a business and a trade or 
profession. Find out why some people of your community are 
better thought of than others. See if possible who are respon- 
sible for the best things of the community, such as good school 
buildings, good roads, parks, libraries and play-grounds. Dis- 
cuss whether or not good clothes and good things to eat are 
the main enjoyment of life. Make a list of twelve of the best 
books for boys and girls to read. (Do not include the Bible 
or any other religious book in your list.) By discussing the 
merits of these books, choose only the best. Discuss the rules 
for playing baseball, checkers, chess and golf. 



XX. CHANCES AND CHOICES 



KMERSON tells us, in one of his books, that 
America spells opportunity. His way of 
putting it expresses a great truth in few 
words. He means, of course, that in this country, 
every boy has his chance and that every girl has 
her chance. It means that there are no fences be- 
fore or around us and that we are free to move 
forward or outward as far and as widely as we 
have the will to go. If we will to stand in one place 
all through life, we are free to do so ; but if we will 
to get on and up we have our chance to do so. 
This ought to give courage and hope to every Amer- 
ican boy and girl. Each one of us has a chance 
and it depends upon ourselves what use we make 
of this chance. We can either go forward or stand 
still. We can fritter away our chance or we can 
make the most of it. 

Chances Where We Are 

There are young people who seem to think that 
the chances of other young people are better than 
their own. They sometimes say that if they lived 
on another street, or in another part of the country, 
or in another state, they would have a better 
chance. If they would only give the matter careful 
thought they would discover that some of the people 
who live on the other street, and in the other part 

(175) 



176 A Civic Reader 

of the country, and in the other state have not 
made much of the chances which these other places 
offer. Here is a college president whose father was 
a hired man on a farm. The owner of the farm 
had a son, also, and these two boys often played 
together. After the son of the hired man became 
president of the college he discovered that his for- 
mer playmate, the farmer's son, was a janitor in 
one of the college buildings. These boys lived in 
the same place and the son of the farmer seemed 
to have the better chances. So it seems clear that 
place hasn't much to do with the matter. 

Chances of the Poor 

Again, a boy has been known to say that, if he 
only had plenty of money, he could and would do 
great things. This boy seems to forget the story 
of Benjamin Franklin who, poor and alone, walked 
the streets of a great city munching his loaf of 
bread. But his chance came and he took it and 
now his name is written high on the scroll of fame. 
This boy seems to forget that Columbus, Lincoln, 
and Grant were all poor. He seems to forget, too, 
that these poor boys were all so busy improving 
their chances that they had no time to talk of, or 
even think, of their poverty. It is quite easy for 
us to make excuses and try to explain why we are 
not improving our chances, but the fact remains 
that many men and women who became great were 
born and reared in poverty. So, if we fail to do 
things we must look for some other explanation 
than our poverty. We can do things if we only 



Chances and Choice 177 

will to do so. But money cannot buy will-power. 
That must come first. If we have that we can 
conquer poverty, or we can make much of our 
chances in spite of poverty. 

Chances Everywhere 

The chances are all about us whether we live 
on the boulevard, on the alley, or on the farm. In 
whatever direction we look we shall see these 
chances. Looking from the back door, the boy sees 
a garden. That is one of his chances. He can 
either take this chance or he can leave it. If he 
takes it he will soon be working with fine zest using 
spade, hoe, and rake to make the garden productive. 
If he does the work well, still larger chances will 
come to him next year. In the winter season his 
chance will come with the snow-storm. The pave- 
ment is hidden under drifts of snow, and he must 
decide whether he will leave it so or whether he 
will go forth and clear the snow away. Here is a 
test of his will-power. If he decides to sit by the 
fire he will show that he lacks this power. But, if 
he decides to clear the snow away his industry will 
attract the notice of the neighbors and passers-by 
and they will give him other chances to be of service 
to others and to fill his purse besides. 

The Girl's Chances 

The girl may find her chance in the kitchen. If 
she takes the chance, within an hour she has made 
that kitchen spick-and-span ; she has brought order 

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178 A Civic Reader 

out of confusion ; and she has come to feel that she 
is able to do even greater things. Or, again, her 
chance may corne when the dinner hour is approach- 
ing and there is no one but herself to prepare the 
meal. If she elects to don her apron and prepare 
the meal she has a feeling of satisfaction that en- 
ables her to sing as she works. Then, when her 
efforts have brought success and father and mother 
are singing her praise, she feels that it was all well 
worth while, and she is glad that she made the 
most of her chance. Or, again, her chance may- 
come when a neighbor is ill and she hears a call for 
help. It requires will-power, of a noble sort, to go 
forth into the storm to answer the call but the joy 
she feels enables her to laugh at the storm as she 
returns to her home. She is glad that she decided 
not to attend the party but to go to the home of the 
neighbor instead. 

The Larger Chances 

So, we see that our chances lie all about us. 
We need not go out to search for them for they can 
be seen in our homes, in our school, on the farm 
where we live, on our street, or in our church. They 
appear on the road to school, in the shop, on the 
car, and in the quiet of our own rooms. They are 
as many and as good right here where we live as 
they could possibly be elsewhere. If we have the 
will-power to make the most of the small chances, 
the larger ones are certain to come. A boy won a 
good reputation in selling papers, and now he is a 
salesman, traveling in many states. If he had failed 



Chances and Choices 179 

in the work of selling papers the larger place would 
not have been open to him. Because a girl was 
faithful and kind in nursing the sick in her own 
neighborhood she was asked to go to France to act 
as a nurse in a large hospital. There are many 
editors of great newspapers who were once news- 
boys and then reporters. By accepting chances as 
they came and making the most of them, greater 
and greater opportunities came to them and the 
scope of their work became larger and larger. 

But whenever a chance comes to us it becomes 
necessary for us to make a choice. We cannot es- 
cape it. So it is that chances and choices are very 
closely connected. When Lincoln saw the pig try- 
ing to get out of the deep mud-puddle he saw a 
chance to do a deed of kindness. Then he had to 
make a choice. He could either ride on and let the 
pig shift for itself the best it could or he could get 
off his horse and help it out. He decided, as you 
know, in favor of the pig and, in so doing, got his 
clothes smeared with mud. Did he make a wise 
choice? History seems to think so, for every one 
who writes of Lincoln mentions this incident. But 
he had to make a choice. There was no other way. 
Then, too, he had to decide for himself. No one 
but himself could do it. So it is with every one of 
us. We must make our own choices. Our parents, 
teachers, and friends may advise us but we must 
decide for ourselves. We may have little or nothing 
to do with the chances that come to us but we have 
everything to do with the choices. Mr. Lincoln did 



180 A Civic Reader 

not put the pig into the mud but he did have to 
decide whether or not he would get it out 

Choices Tell What We Are 

And the choices we make tell what sort of 
people we are. We can always judge people by the 
choices they make. We can judge them by their 
choices of books, of magazines, of amusements, of 
the words they use, and certainly by their choices 
of friends. We can tell the choices of people by the 
clothing they wear, by the language they use, and 
by their general conduct. Besides, we must all make 
choices a hundred times a day and the people about 
us are judging us by these choices. We seem to be 
standing at the forks of a road every hour of the 
day and must decide whether we shall go to the 
right or to the left. We cannot escape making 
choices. Then, again, the choices we are making 
today tell people not only what we are now but, 
also, what we shall be in the future for our choices 
show the direction in which we are going. The 
book we choose today will tell people of the books 
we shall be choosing next week and next year. The 
friends we choose today will give people a clue as 
to our associates next year. 

Choosing Wisely 

If, today, we have a hundred chances we must 
make a hundred choices, and if these choices are 
wise ones we shall contract the habit of choosing 
wisely and shall thus win a reputation for wisdom. 



Chances and Choices 181 

Here is a boy, let us say, who has ten problems for 
tomorrow's lesson. These problems are his chance 
and he must choose whether he will have them ready 
for tomorrow or whether he will fail in the recita- 
tion. He must make his own choice. Or, if some 
one solves the problems for him, he must decide 
whether he will pass them in as his own or tell the 
teacher the facts. If he has the will-power, the 
grit, and the perseverance to solve all the problems, 
he will not only enjoy the recitation tomorrow but 
he will be able to make the most of a larger chance 
the next day. This means that the boy must decide 
for himself whether his school work shall all be 
done well and thoroughly or whether it shall be 
flimsy and slipshod. If he does all his work well, 
when his chance to go to college comes, he will have 
no hesitancy in making the right choice. 

Some Effects of Choices 

There comes to every girl a chance to become 
educated and cultured and she must decide what she 
will do with this chance. If she decides against it 
she will have no one to blame but herself. If she 
chooses to be cheap and artificial no one can prevent 
her doing so. If she chooses to do good honest 
work, to eat wholesome food, to get plenty of fresh 
air, and enough sleep she will have roses in her 
cheeks, brightness in her eyes, buoyancy in all her 
movements, and music in her laughter. But if she 
chooses the other course, not even her mother can 
prevent. She can paint and powder if she wills to 
do so ; she can smoke cigarettes, even ; and she can 



182 A Civic Reader 

be coarse, ignorant, and boisterous if she so chooses. 
She can read cheap books and magazines, attend 
cheap shows, use cheap language, and associate with 
cheap people if such is her choice. Then when people 
come to speak of her as cheap, she will know that 
they are judging her by the choices she has been 
making. She had her chance, she made her choice, 
and she must take the consequences. 

Vain Regrets 

Every boy has his chance to be either a gen- 
tleman or a boor; to become an educated man or an 
ignorant one; to be kind, gentle, and agreeable or 
to be rude, coarse, and disagreeable, and he only can 
decide which it shall be. The girl has her chance 
to become a musician, an artist, a writer, a physi- 
cian, or a scholar, or she can idle away her hours 
and days, thinking little thoughts, engaging in silly 
pastimes, and doing things that are useless or worse 
than useless. She alone must make her own choices, 
but she must never let those who know her hear her 
say that she never had a chance. Her chances were 
as good as the chances of others but she failed to 
make wise choices. While others were going to the 
right she went to the left and her present regrets 
cannot take her back to the forks of the road. 
Many men who made unwise choices in their boy- 
hood are now filled with regrets and tell us frankly 
that they had their chances but lacked the good 
sense to make the most of them. 



Chances and Choices 183 

Conclusions 

It will be seen, therefore, that the chances and 
choices of young people are very important matters 
in their life plans and are well worth much careful 
thinking. Excuses never can correct mistakes. It 
is much easier and better to avoid mistakes than to 
succeed in explaining them away. It is well for us 
all to reflect that the men and women who have 
done great deeds were not geniuses at all but were 
wise enough to make right choices when their 
chances came. That is the whole explanation, un- 
less we add that they did hard work. Here we have 
the whole thing in a nut-shell. They saw their 
chances; they made wise choices; and then worked 
with might and main to reach the goal. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Define in your best way the difference between a chance 
and a choice. What opportunities do you have which are 
denied to boys and girls of other places? Which profession in 
your community seems to pay the best in money? Which as 
far as the good accomplished? Why are some people needy? 
Is there such a thing as being unfortunate? Why are so 
many people willing to suffer inconvenience rather than work? 
Why do you think tramps and beggars are unhappy? Why 
are some people tramps and beggars? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Make a list of all the professions, industries and other 
kinds of work in your community. (Lawyer, Doctor, Minister, 
etc.) 

Suggest as many ways as possible where the people of 
your community could make improvements in living without 



184 A Civic Reader 

much cost. Show by several illustrations that where we live 
means very little to our success. Make a list of the boys and 
girls of your school in the past who have succeeded in life. 

Let each member of the class report in writing the choice 
of one profession or trade in which he or she may succeed and 
why. 



XXL COMMUNITY LIFE 



A COMMUNITY may be made up of a few 
people or it may be several hundred fami- 
lies. In cities the community is generally 
formed by people having the same school and church 
interests. There are other interests which may 
cause community centers in cities such as lodges, 
play-grounds, street pride and business. Village 
and county life is somewhat different, all the 
people of such places generally form the commu- 
nity. Every boy and girl live in some community 
and are a part of it. Therefore many of the prob- 
lems of the community must be theirs sooner or 
later. 

Make Yourself Felt 

Almost any person of any community knows 
nearly all the people who live there. Not only that 
but much about the life and work of each one. This 
makes it necessary for every one in any community 
to have a certain standing. A man or woman may 
be looked upon as honest, good, industrious, kind, 
upright, dignified, and just or lazy, slouchy, and 
good-for-nothing. Boys and girls may be classed as 
ambitious, happy, helpful, courteous and useful or 
indolent, impudent, deceitful, cruel and useless. 

Each boy and girl may choose which of these 
things he or she cares to be. But to be any one the 
least said about it by yourself the better. Just make 

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186 A Civic Reader 

up your mind that you will make yourself felt in 
the community and take pleasure in seeing other 
people appreciate the things you do. It seems so 
much easier to allow the other fellow to do it until 
you try, then you see the difference. It is interest- 
ing to see why other boys and girls are appreciated 
by older people, then try not necessarily the same 
but other ways of making people see you. 

Learn to Work 

Work is a disagreeable word for many boys 
and girls while play sounds good to them. One 
boy's definition for work and play was, "Work is 
anything I do not like to do, play is anything I 
like to do." Likely this is a good definition. If so, 
there will soon be very few things we do not like 
to do. Learning to work is after all simple. All 
that is necessary is to begin and then take pleasure 
in seeing what you do. Any one has seen some one 
else look back upon what he has done with a smile 
of satisfaction. There is just one better pay than 
this. That is, the way other people look upon what 
you have done. Any boy or girl who says, "I will 
play now and work when I am grown up," will 
never find pleasure in work but some day will work 
from necessity. 

Plan Better Conditions 

Some day the question of making the commu- 
nity better will come up. As a boy or girl you will 
have very little to say about it for you cannot vote. 
Some people will say, "These roads or streets are 



Community Life 187 

good enough. Why spend all this money in building 
such roads." "This school house is as good as I 
had and it is good enough for my children." "Wa- 
terworks make people lazy." When you hear such 
remarks just study why the people say these things 
and you will soon see that it is the matter of cost. 
Many boys and girls are showing their parents the 
necessity of better conditions in the home and in 
the community. Any boy should favor a labor 
saving machine for his father or mother. The best 
of equipment for the home is none too good, neither 
is the best school building or road too good for any 
community. Boys and girls know this better than 
do their fathers and mothers. So it is necessary 
for boys and girls to plan better conditions for the 
home and community. 

Think of Others 

In a certain town there lived a fine old gentle- 
man and his wife. They were respected by all be- 
cause they were always willing to help any one 
who needed it. Many times every year they were 
known to give assistance to some one in distress. 
Every cent they could spare was turned to help 
some needy person. 

The man died leaving his widow with very little 
on which to live. People were kind to her for a 
while, remembering her and her husband of better 
days. Very soon, however, some one suggested that 
she could not continue to be a public charge, so she 
was taken to the "poor-house" where she soon died. 
Just across the road from the home of this man 



188 A Civic Reader 

and woman lived a family who had much more of 
everything than they needed. The man in the fam- 
ily talked much about how sorry he was for these 
good people, yet it never occurred to him that his 
duty demanded that he make this man and woman 
comfortable and happy while they lived. Thinking 
of others is a big lesson and hard to learn. 

Make the Community Better 

It is the experience of nearly every community 
to have some one living there who feels better and 
above the other people. This type of citizen is 
always unhappy and likely not very well thought 
of by the community as a whole. It is easy to make 
yourself feel at home where you live. Perhaps one 
of the best ways to do this is to try each day to 
make the community better. We have seen a family 
live in a community for years and always seem to 
be working for the advantage of the individuals of 
the family without doing much for the other people. 
The reward for this attitude is always criticism and 
ill-feeling. After all the greatest satisfaction of 
making the community better comes to the ones 
who help. 

Self-Respect 

A boy said, "I cannot do that, what would my 
mother think ?" This expression is an evidence of 
self-respect. When any one cares what others think 
he will soon develop the right kind of respect for 
himself. The boy or girl who uses vulgar language 
in the presence or hearing of refined people has 
lost a good opportunity to develop self-respect be- 



Community Life 189 

cause they did not care. When you see some other 
person dress with more care, keep cleaner, use bet- 
ter language, keep better company, or do kind and 
considerate acts, you may know that self-respect 
will be developed by such acts. 

The Joy of Service 

We read in the biographies of great men and 
women the wonderful things they have accom- 
plished and hope some day to be like them. We 
find that when any of these men and women were 
praised it was on account of what they did for 
some one else. We think of ourselves much of the 
time but a few times we are really anxious to do 
something for some one other than ourselves or our 
own people. This is service, and when any boy or 
girl gets joy from such acts, all know he or she will 
make a useful man or woman. 

Purpose of a Study of Civics 

The purpose of the study of civics is to point 
out and make clear to all boys and girls the value 
of doing their best at all times. Many times 
temptations of present pleasures will urge you to 
put off until some future time the things which 
should be done today. There is no use to envy other 
folks for their opportunities as you have better ones, 
as far as you are concerned. Always keep in mind 
that you live in the best possible land, and that the 
flag of the United States is the emblem of freedom 
and justice. May no act or thought of any boy or 



190 A Civic Reader 

girl who reads these pages disturb in any way the 
future welfare of the greatest and best Nation on 
earth, the United States of America. 



QUESTIONS FOR CLASS DISCUSSION 

Try to give the boundaries of your community. Who in 
the community seems to have the most to say as to how 
things are done? Why? 

Find out when each improvement was made in the com- 
munity in the last five years. Who paid for each improve- 
ment? Do you have people in the community who cause 
trouble? How do they do this? Gossip is bad practice. See if 
you can find out why some people talk too much. Who are 
the best people of your community? Why? 

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY 

Find out, if possible, how some minister spends any week 
day. Do the same for a lawyer and a merchant. Who seems 
to work the hardest? Find out how many buildings are used 
in the county for the refuge and protection of orphans, and 
unfortunate people. How many people are confined in these 
buildings? Who pays the expenses? Make a list of all the 
men and women who have accomplished great things, whose 
biographies you have read. A good exercise for two or three 
recitations would be an assignment to each member of the 
class of a report of the life of some well known person. 
The early work and training of the persons reported should 
be emphasized. 



